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Rick Dove, Paradigm Shift
International, www.parshift.com, 
In the last decade most people in the United States, young and old, have been touched by the wave of downsizing - whether personally, with a family relation, or with a neighbor. Many lessons are being learned from this - but one of the most poignant is that finding another job often requires the learning of new skills - because the old ones are obsolete. And that learning is not a pleasant concept for most who have put that period of life behind them. Among an already large and growing percentage of the population, young people entering the workforce are aware that they will need to be life long learners. Young and old alike see the differences in how each denies, copes with, or masters the new technologies entering every day life.
Globally, the business world today is awakening to the fact that knowledge management and organizational learning are the new frontier for both competitive leadership and for sustainable viability. Individually, this awareness doesn’t come from foresight or from innovative strategists - but rather from a demonstrated inability to keep up with the furious pace of changing knowledge - knowledge that the business is based upon. What to do about it is the question. There are some pioneering organizations today that are aggressively experimenting with new concepts, but most are confused with, or incapable of, dealing with what is considered a soft and social aspect of business. Though the majority are not yet players, economic reality is rearing its head.
The very knowledge explosion that is creating the need is also creating the means to respond. Biology, psychology, and cognitive sciences are generating knowledge about how the human brain learns; and have shown us that we can use this knowledge to intervene effectively in the learning process of virtually any and all humans. At the same time, technology is bringing us new concepts of distance learning, new access to the world’s storehouse of knowledge, and new ubiquitous communication capabilities.
Educators for some time have understood that traditional teaching techniques do not succeed in creating learned and learning individuals from most who enter traditional educational institutions - either in the K-12 or University systems. It was common in the past to pass this off as the population’s bell-shaped intelligence curve, or in many cases, considered a useful fact to be used as an early weeding-out process of students that teachers should not waste time with. Today most educators are aware that different people learn differently, that there are multiple intelligence types, and that the brain is a natural learning organ whose functional mechanisms we are beginning to understand. Many see hope, some are even working miracles with this new knowledge, but most are caught in, and even part of, the institutional inertia of the public sector. Nevertheless, the experimental employment of emerging brain-based learning models is beginning to show irrefutable results. Though these new ideas are uncomfortable for the entrenched traditionalists, the results can not be denied.
So there exists a major need and there exists the means to fill it.
Michael Milken’s new company, Knowledge Universe, is testament to the growing general and already significant interest in education. This start-up company has its eye on the $665 Billion annual education market in the United States. "Milken told Fortune [Magazine] as long ago as 1996 that his next big idea was to view education -- everything from preschools for 2-year-olds and CD-ROM-based math tutorials for high school students to executive training and continuing education for retirees -- as one vast market, with individual companies integrating these diverse businesses [Life Long Learning Spells Earnings, Fortune Magazine, July 6, 1998]."
Knowledge Universe has already passed the $1 billion dollar revenue mark, achieving this size through an aggressive acquisition program. The original $500 Million investment is now reputed to be worth eight times that amount. Though Milken and his executives are closed mouthed about their business strategy, they do not appear to be strategically interested at this time in the new knowledge about effective brain-based learning. Their tight lips are attributed to their belief that others will follow in their path and they do not wish to educate potential competitors.
The Fortune article goes on to say: "...polls show that that the public considers much of this [$650 Billion] spending wasted. American corporations are forced to deal with the consequences in lost productivity and costly worker training. The need for skilled employees has never been keener, yet one in ten information technology jobs sits
What if you could cut learning time considerably? What if you could guarantee that learning would occur for everybody? What if you could make the learning process enjoyable? Milken’s company is not yet interested in these concepts - but there will come a time soon when competitive pressures in the emerging business of education will put the focus on process and employable results - on quality rather than test scores.
There exists a major need and there exists a means to fill it.
Forces that make the learning society inevitable are
already unleashed. Milken’s company and others like it are forming the foundation of
a business-based distribution system that will deliver education and learning - and they
are doing this because there is a real and growing demand. Meanwhile the educational
community is testing and experimenting with the science that will dramatically change the
effectiveness of education and learning. And some clear, early successes are already being
implemented in larger scale.
For example, "While writing a school restructuring grant,
administrators and members of the [Altimira, CA middle school] staff attended a workshop
... One focus of the workshop was current advances in brain research and creating a
brain-compatible environment ... The information on brain research was a major
‘aha’ for us ... It made sense to us that just as a heart surgeon needs to
understand how a heart works, a teacher must understand how the brain functions."
Marilyn Kelly and Geraldine Rosemurgy [Transformations: Leadership For Brain-Compatible
Learning, McGeehan, 1998] go on to say that this focused the restructuring on brain
research and creating a brain-compatible environment. Kelly is now the superintendent of
the Sonoma Valley School District and has integrated these concepts throughout the
district. Rosemurgy was the district project manager responsible for the restructuring,
and, interestingly enough, won the University of San Francisco Graduate Research Award for
her thesis on the use of brain research in the private sector and its implications for
training and development.
The Age of Learning, a vision painted in a recent essay [here, July 98], is an idea who’s
time has come.
The transition to a global learning society has started. Much like the
transition from the agrarian society to the industrial society, this will not happen
overnight. Nor will it be a painless transition. Again we will see major economic changes
on a global scale, this time triggered by countries that become populated with agile
learners before others. Within countries a region or race or class that cultivates agile
learners will become dramatically advantaged over those that haven’t moved as
quickly. Economic gaps that exist now will get even wider. This is what happens when
societal transitions of this magnitude occur. And in times of such dramatic transition not
all enticing paths reach the same end.
Though we as a society may know roughly where we are going, how we will
get there is not something that can be understood with any certainty. New knowledge
developed as humanity travels the path will alter the course and the pace of progress.
Could we do something to accelerate society’s passage into the Age
of Learning? If we could, we would reduce the time and magnitude of both societal upheaval
and economic restructuring, and bring an earlier end to much of the societal ills caused
by ignorance, intolerance, and disenfranchisement. Accomplishing this, however, would
require the willing involvement of much of society - it would require a faster rate of
institutional change then would otherwise occur - and it would require a focused vision
and a clear road map that can inspire involvement, reduce directional confusion, and
provide an action plan for anyone ready to participate.
Could we actually do something? We have a vision. Now we have a mission.
What would an effective mission fulfillment strategy have to address? For starters, how
about the ingredients in the table below?.
©1998 RKDove - Attributed Copies Permitted