Rowan's Future of Choice

Big companies can't recruit the workers they want, so they are making them.

Large systems--whether economic, biological, social, or political--have always influenced one another to some degree. Regulators affect financial behaviors; societies organize around resources and markets; outsiders indirectly control policymaker decisions. This phenomenon is certainly becoming more intentional and directive, and the tools are being built to enable it.  Look, for example, at the emerging field of behavior economics, which seeks to combine the murky theories of economics with the science of psychology.

Here is the question: have closer relationships between large systems enhanced or diminished the global conditions of freedom, security, prosperity, or health? Do conspiring systems make better decisions?

The merger of education and business is certainly worth looking at for possible answers. Big companies can't recruit the workers they want, so they are making them. I found this at a Fortune magazine forum:

"Companies like IBM, Credit Suisse and BMW are now designing and funding curricula changes at major universities, partly in response to the perception that today's graduates lack certain fundamental skills for a global economy. This means more than just donating free computers or books for a class - it means developing the curriculum from scratch, awarding financial incentives to universities to change the way they teach certain courses, and sometimes even providing the "professor" to teach the course -- all in the name of producing graduates that are better prepared to work for their companies in the future.

"The basic question, of course, is whether the extensive role played by [these companies]... in creating and promoting the new curriculum represents a breach of academic integrity."

Fortune Innovation Forum; tee shirt

Assisted learning

An economics professor wrote a mystery novel to help his MBA students understand decision making.

"Dr. Singh, a fan of mystery novels, turned to fiction to explain his subject because students often find the systematic, analytical decision-making strategies taught in business school difficult to understand."

Poor grad students. They are having trouble understanding a topic. What have things come to? Why, in my day....

Never mind. What can we do to help? Forget text books. Perhaps the doctor could write a fictional series to replace the entire economics curriculum, starting with Microeconomics: Honey I Shrunk the Economy.

Perhaps business students could race shopping carts through WalMart to demonstrate their mastery of merchandising? Why couldn't students just replace professors, read what they want, and give themselves course credit?

Tuition costs should drop, right? That would be a relief.

New York Times story (registration required); It was a dark and stormy night; the book; the photo

Teachers: What are we thinking?

Most of us believe K-12 teachers are critical to our nation’s future. Yet, we pay them poorly; make them teach kids for testing, not for learning; provide difficult working conditions; and sometimes look down on them socially. Then we begrudge them a few weeks off in the summer….

Is there some hope in charter schools? This from a San Diego newspaper:

"The biggest attraction for charter school teachers is that they help set direction and policy for the school, said Gary Larson, vice president of communications for the California Charter Schools Association. He called this an exciting prospect for a group pivotal in the education process but usually cut out of strategic decisions."

"The number one reason teachers leave the profession is a lack of say in decision-making."

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