Hovering parents, who strive to make everything right for their child, are the global bane of education.
But it doesn’t seem to end when their child graduates.
I receive at least a call a month from managers who have no idea of a polite way to deal with what can only be called workplace hovering.
In every case the parental call was either to
tell the manager how stupid she was not to hire their kid;
find out why their kid’s review wasn’t stuffed with glowing references; or
ask who the hell the manager thought he was to promote someone else.
Managers say that in many cases the parent was screaming and the language used to describe the manager is best not quotable in a business blog.
What in the world is going on?
Many of the parents calling are managers in their own right; I wonder how they handle similar calls.
I could write another 500 words on the subject and not do nearly as good a job putting the point across as does the following (in spite of it being a hoax)—perhaps a modified version could be designed for companies.
If you have ever had to hire for any position whatsoever you know it’s imperative to consider exactly what the requirements are before you start interviewing and even better to write them down. Additionally, writing them down keeps them from being too fluid and forces you to consider what you actually need when faced with a candidate you really like who doesn’t have them.
The better you are at analyzing and understanding your team’s weaknesses and future needs the better you become at hiring the right person at the right time and for the right reasons.
There are many managers who can’t be bothered to expend the time and energy required to do this and that goes a long way to ensuring the candidate’s (and the manager’s) success.
These managers often shoot for the stars, but quickly roll over, drop the standards and settle for the first warm body that passes by.
Doing so damages the team, imperils whatever projects are being done and even jeopardizes the company’s future by reducing quality and shipping shoddy goods.
Our nation’s schools are responsible for manufacturing the future workforce.
Much of the executive management are choosing the road of least resistance and dropping standards in an effort to raise production numbers.
The result is the same—reduced quality and shoddy goods.
The difference is that there is no alternative supply. Eventually, as the economy improves, you will have no choice but to buy those goods.
The solution for investors is to force management to improve quality, not lower the metrics to look good.
Image credit: Design and Technology Student on flickr
If you are a manager and despair at the quality of people that fill your entry level positions, not their attitude, but their skills and basic education, prepare for it to get worse.
Perhaps instead of ranting and whining about America’s loss of global leadership we should look closer to home for the real cause—US education.
The ethnic groups with the worst outcomes in school are African-Americans and Hispanics. The achievement gaps between these groups and their white and Asian-American peers are already large in kindergarten and only grow as the school years pass. These are the youngsters least ready right now to travel the 21st-century road to a successful life.
By 2050, the percentage of whites in the work force is projected to fall from today’s 67 percent to 51.4 percent. The presence of blacks and Hispanics in the work force by midcentury is expected to be huge, with the growth especially sharp among Hispanics.
No, whites and Asians aren’t smarter, but they do have socioeconomic advantages that are lacking for these minorities.
Advantages that our educational system and politicians at all levels are doing little to address.
It’s not always about money, although that is a part of it, nor is it about standardized tests that do little to improve true education, it’s about innovation and educating outside the box.
Harvard Graduate School of Education is creating a new doctoral degree to be focused on leadership in education. It’s the first new degree offered by the school in 74 years. The three-year course will be tuition-free and conducted in collaboration with faculty members from the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The idea is to develop dynamic new leaders who will offer the creativity, intellectual rigor and professionalism that is needed to help transform public education in the U.S.
Creativity, intellectual rigor, professionalism; this leadership isn’t just about visions and influence, it’s about creating people who will roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty often toil in relative obscurity on the biggest problems facing this country.
Kathleen McCartney, the graduate school’s dean, explained one of the dilemmas that has hampered reform. “If you look at people who are running districts,” she said, “some come from traditional schools of education, and they understand the core business of education but perhaps are a little weak on the management side. And then you’ve got the M.B.A.-types who understand operations, let’s say, but not so much teaching and learning.”
Will it work?
Can the program make a difference quickly enough to change the current downward trajectory of our future?
Will other schools step up to the plate now or will they wait a decade or so and see how the Harvard program fares?
Does anybody care enough about what will happen in 20, 30, 40 years to accept a little discomfort now or should we just build more prisons?
Leadership Turn is ending; its last day is December 29. I’ve enjoyed writing it and our interaction since August 16, 2007 and I hope we can continue at my other blog where Leadership’s Future will carry on.
If you enjoy my views and writing, please join me at MAPping Company Success or subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.
Most of you know that I write a feature every Thursday called Leadership’s Future; it’s the outgrowth of articles written by CandidProf, who guested regularly last year, and is written around education, kids, parents and Millennials.
The trouble is that I find far more articles than I can write about, so today I’m giving you links to the best of them. I hope you take the small amount of time necessary to click through and read them, because they are important to y/our future.
First is a question that has been asked for decades and still has no real agreement. Do advanced degrees in education make for a better teacher or just a higher paycheck? But below the surface of this question lurks a larger problem—what happens when the schools conferring the degree has a second rate, or worse, program?
Next is an article about “effortful control” in toddlers and the value of guilt, or what the kids call “a sinking feeling in the tummy,” with a link to the actual study. The researcher also spells out the substantial difference between guilt, doing something bad, and shame, being a bad person—guilt is productive, shame is destructive.
Third is Boston Public Schools has reinstituted their Parent Academy after killing it earlier this year in the midst of budget cuts. Call it a parent engagement project and they are sweeping the country. The one in Boston cost between $50-100K, a cheap price for getting parents actively and positively involved in their kids education.
Last is an update on an article that CandidProf wrote last year regarding the dismal graduation statistics resulting from tying funding to college recruiting. Now the results are starting to show. “The United States does a good job enrolling teenagers in college, but only half of students who enroll end up with a bachelor’s degree.” Only Italy has a worse record; pretty sad. Be sure to read the comments for a number of interesting views.
The silly blow-up over President Obama’s back-to-school speech drove home once again how I am that won’t be around when the current crop of kids take the reins of political, social and business so-called leadership roles.
I am continually amazed and revolted as I watch so-called conservatives of all stripes work to be sure their children are exposed to nothing that conflicts with whatever ideology they are steeping them in.
I say ‘conservatives’ because so-called liberals seem more flexible within their stands. (Please note that I said ‘flexible, not changeable.)
What exactly was in this speech, that some kids weren’t allowed to hear? Here are some excerpts that I found especially uplifting to hear—and if you think I cherry-picked the contents you can read it in its entirety and decide for yourself.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world — and none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.
You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to train for it and work for it and learn for it.
What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of America depends on you. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents and your skills and your intellect so you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that — if you quit on school — you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.
[After describing specific kids’ situations] But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you’re not going to be any of those things. The truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject that you study. You won’t click with every teacher that you have. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and that then allows you to learn something new.
So today, I want to ask all of you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?
Why? Because he encouraged them to take responsibility for themselves? Because he said that our country’s future depends on them? Because he was raised by a single mom? Because he told them that success was a function of very hard work?
Or is it the closed-minded attitude of the ideologue represented by 15-year-old Andrew Quick, near Orlando, Fla., who said “he considered the speech to be a potentially disruptive interruption of his school day, so decided not to watch it. “I’m a Republican,” he said, “and I really don’t like Obama all that much.”
I translate that to mean ‘I don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t think as I think and agree with me’, an attitude that doesn’t bode well for our country’s future.
Exactly what in this speech was of such concern to the conservative agenda that their kids should not hear it?
Perhaps the problem is the message that, in the end, they are each responsible for what they become—not their parents or teachers or politicians and certainly not God—just them.
That they will be what they choose to be and whether that choice is active or passive; it’s their choice as thinking individuals—assuming they choose to think and not just blindly follow a given ideology.
Two articles caught my eye this week, both on a very positive note.
Education
The first is an overview discussing what Arne Duncan, the new education secretary, did in Chicago and wants to do nationally. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more than we’ve seen in years. Not only that, but the price tag per school isn’t that outrageous considering what I’ve seen previously and he doesn’t seem to expect states to pull the funding out of thin air as NCLB did.
It won’t be a silver bullet (what is), but maybe we’re finally moving (glacially) in a positive direction.
Parenting
The second article is even more encouraging, since it looks at parents—who are at the heart of this mess.
But I see this new fad as a move in the right direction. It’s about letting kids play, doing less and (maybe) realizing that your kids are not the center of the universe or even your primary purpose in life.
How’s that for revolutionary?
Can you imagine? Instead of having every minute of every week packed with scheduled functions, parents would expend some of that energy making sure that their kids used the free time to run around, play using their imaginations, read, think and dream, as opposed to texting, keyboarding or watching TV.
They could use some of the extra time and energy that went into keeping their offspring on schedule to staying involved with their spouse and some more on feeding their own soul.
They might even have enough energy to learn to say ‘no’ and stop indulging their kids to the point of entitlement.
Sounds like a trip to Fantasy Island, but who knows, it might be part of the recession’s silver lining.
“…the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. … The stimulus requires governors to raise standards to a new benchmark: the point at which high school graduates can succeed — without remedial classes — in college, the workplace or the military.”
Sounds great, but all I can say is good luck.
Not because of teacher quality; not because of money, since they actually plan to fund education (unlike the original N. C. L. B.) and not because the state governors won’t get behind it, but because there is no way to mandate parental support.
Previously, “the No Child Left Behind law allowed each state to set its own academic standards, with the result that many have dumbed down curriculums and tests. Colorado even opted to use its “partially proficient” level of academic performance as “proficient” for reporting purposes.”
“…an unpopular math teacher was dismissed from a suburban high school where I live because parents complained that she was far too tough on her students. She gave them way too much homework, and her tests were much tougher than the other math teachers’ tests, forcing her students to study for hours each week outside of class. Interestingly, her students also scored the highest on state mandated standardized achievement tests as well as higher than other teachers’ students on the quantitative portion of the SAT and on the math AP exams. Still, she was tough, so they fired her.”
Parents as a group are vocal about wanting better education and are quick to blame teachers, schools and government for its sorry state.
They never consider their own complicity in the downward spiral of US education. It just couldn’t have anything to do with their parenting.
After all, it’s only fair that they talk to the principal/school board about Ms. Randell’s/Mr. Johnson’s totally unfair treatment of their precious children; all that time the kids are expected to spend on homework when they would rather be socializing with their friends. And the papers they’re expected to write, not just copy off the internet, using good grammar and being down-graded for using texting terms; not to mention the tests—they’re just too difficult.
Nor should they be expected to tell their kids that they need to work really hard if they want to get into college—let alone at a job—that’s not supportive and may damage their fragile egos.
“”The show counteracts the stance that the world owes you whatever you want, even a living as a rock star, just because you happen to want it,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.”
I’ve never watched Idol, but if it’s teaching that lesson I’ll be a lot more tolerant when it pre-empts something I do watch.
There’s been a lot said (and ranted) over the last couple of decades about the dumbing down of America. Not just kids, but adults, too.
I’m not referring to the expertise each of us has that allows us to do our jobs and generally function, but of the general knowledge of the world in which we live—literature, geography, art, etc.—call it liberal arts, if you will.
Few Americans are multi-lingual, as opposed to Europeans, East Europeans, Russians, Asians, etc., and our knowledge of geography is laughable.
I remember a survey during the Bosnia war and more than half of the respondents didn’t know where Bosnia was or that it, along with the republics of Slovenia, Croatia, and Herzegovina, were part of the old Yugoslavia, with Serbia and Montenegro forming the rest—nor did they seem to care.
For centuries, fighting of one kind or another has gone on almost constantly in the Middle East and, to put it mildly, is still going on and having a major impact on us today.
But most people have only a vague idea where these countries are.
How much do you know? Click the MAP below and see how well you do on arranging the listed countries.
On a general level I had them on the right continent, but don’t think much of my knowledge beyond that.
Does it matter? Does knowledge in liberal arts areas foster more than interesting, late night discussions over a bottle of wine?
What does it mean to be educated in the Twenty-first Century?
Starting last June a college professor, who goes by CandidProf, has been writing a series of posts based on his first hand experiences with students and administrators.
Recently I was asked why I included them in Leadership Turn; it isn’t an education blog and what exactly did the topic have to do with leadership. To be honest the question floored me.
The only thing I can think of that has more to do with leadership than education is parenting.
Both require serious leadership skills, but beyond that their focus, kids, are leadership’s future.
CP is on hiatus for now, but that doesn’t reduce the need to focus on what could become the greatest leadership void ever faced.
Parents are the first and foremost source of leadership skills, not because they actively teach them, but because ‘monkey see, monkey do’. Unfortunately, as a whole, the job done leaves much to be desired.
Now we’re facing a gift-giving season in the worst economy in decades. You would think this was a great chance to teach children that they can’t have everything; that instant gratification isn’t guaranteed; that they aren’t entitled.
But it’s not happening. In article after article parents, especially moms, say the same thing. That they plan to cut everything—except the kids presents. “I want her to be able to look back and say, ‘Even though they were tough times, my mom was still able to give me stuff.”
Financial experts, such as Michelle Singletary, disagree, “By discussing with them that money is tight, you are admitting that at times you can’t do or get what you want. You are teaching them you can’t spend what you don’t have… Make the choice not to spend if you can’t afford it this year. Love your children like never before, but don’t go shopping out of guilt if you don’t have the cash.”
Even better than the economic lesson, which in itself has great value, you will start your children to understanding that not everything is within their control (or yours); that they aren’t entitled to have their every wish come true; that ‘instant’ isn’t their birthright, ‘gratification’ doesn’t always happen and that they really won’t die if they don’t get <fill in the blank>.
Who’s right? All the sacrificing moms or the minority like Singletary and me?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
If you have ever had to hire for any position whatsoever you know it’s imperative to consider exactly what the requirements are before you start interviewing and even better to write them down. Additionally, writing them down keeps them from being too fluid and forces you to consider what you actually need when faced with a candidate you really like who doesn’t have them.
If you are a manager and despair at the quality of people that fill your entry level positions, not their attitude, but their skills and basic education, prepare for it to 
The trouble is that I find far more articles than I can write about, so today I’m giving you links to the best of them. I hope you take the small amount of time necessary to click through and read them, because they are important to y/our future.
I am continually amazed and revolted as I watch so-called conservatives of all stripes work to be sure their children are exposed to nothing that conflicts with whatever ideology they are steeping them in.
Two articles caught my eye this week, both on a very positive note.
Whoever thought that it would be American Idol that would teach kids that 
Now we’re facing a gift-giving season in the worst economy in decades. You would think this was a great chance to teach children that they can’t have everything; that instant gratification isn’t guaranteed; that they aren’t entitled.
