James Drogan

Re Conversations with Dave 

One of the things I always want to do when thinking is to draw pictures. I suppose this comes from my degree in applied science, some experience in what one might loosely call the fine arts (water color painting), and my early efforts at systems engineering.

In this case I’m suggesting that an investment in time/effort results in the acquisition of knowledge and a subsequent return on the investment through the actions predicated on that knowledge.

The return line is anchored at the origin and rotates counterclockwise or clockwise depending upon one’s capacity (greater or lesser, respectively) to absorb and internalize the knowledge. The length of the line is a function of the commitment one makes to the investment. Lifetime learning is represented by long lines.

One could, I suppose draw, at worst, a horizontal line indicating the level of knowledge required to resolve certain issues. At best, I suspect this line probably rises as one goes from left to right. The three box model was satisfactory at one time, but the five box model is to be preferred, and someone has had had the temerity to suggest five is not enough.

The investment line suggests that there is a limit to the amount of investment that one is willing (boredom arrives) or able (the decision window has closed) to make.

In the second case, external forces are tending to push the limit set by the decision window to the left. Unless one changes the return line one will, over time, have less and less knowledge available to resolve increasingly complex issues. I think the decrease in the size of decision windows is an unstoppable force. The only thing that one can do to cope is to rotate the return line counterclockwise.

By the way, it ought to be obvious I’m making this up as I go along. I’m not exactly sure where this is going, but I hope to come back and remove this paragraph.

Hence, what we need is to find a way to rotate the return line counterclockwise. I understand the line may shorten (an implication to be worked through later).

I see only two ways to do this. Improving the K-12 educational system, at a minimum, but also extending this to improvement into higher education (at least to the Masters level). We have discussed this at some length.

The second way is to improve collaboration. Technology helps here, but there is also a change in mind set required. My experience is that you can dump a lot of pretty smart people into the SIDAL process, but they will not necessarily form a high performance team. The notion of collaboration ought to be on our discussion list.

Oops, a third way pops up. Increase the return by focusing only on relevant knowledge. That, of course, is what fact-based hypothesis-driven reasoning is all about. And this calls into question the value of the Great Books (this alone ought to provoke some sort of response from you). Eruditeness may, in fact, be a burden in the future world. On the other hand, those that traffic in imagination, to whom you refer in the last part of your note, may be of great value.

As to the matter of boredom, the option here is to find a way to make the seemingly boring actually exciting. That’s what good teachers are all about. I think we can agree we have too few of these.

However, I think there is and will always be the need for the person that understands the picture to be made from all the little pieces. Where are they to be found? How are they to be nurtured and retained?

Maybe Homer and Great Books do not fit with Modern Life.  This may be seen as in opposition to what I have often maintained prior to this note. Indeed, I think it may well be. If Homer and the Great Books can be considered as representative of the knowledge of the person that understands the picture to be made from all the little pieces, then I what I am leading towards this person as the composer, orchestrator, and maestro (COM; acronym is required because I sense I’m going to come back to this idea). We need more of these.

And we need the members of the orchestra, the specialists, for which Homer and the Great Books are not what is required.

Now the following should come as no great surprise.

Over time, as technology and our understanding of collaboration has developed, the COM (the single box) can direct an increasing number of specialists. Collaboration is not represented, in my mind, by blogger babble, but rather by such things as open source and wikipedia. The COMs must understand and must apply Homer and Great Books while the specialists should be content with the Red Books (IBMese).

What seems so straightforward, blissful even, is set upon by culture, Maslow’s Hierarchy, myopia, and all the related diseases that hinder our ability to pay attention, to listen and hear, to understand, to practice tolerance, to accept and, ultimately, to work in a more positive way for the common good. There are, as you have often pointed out, cures for the diseases if only the patients will be willing to take the waters.

So there you are. It’s all about incentive. Unfortunately, incentive generally arrives when one is under duress (think IBM in the early 90s). In the pace of today’s and tomorrow’s world that may well be too late. It becomes harder and harder to get on top and stay on top of the wave. I’m pretty sure that we in higher education are not dealing with this as effectively as we ought.

All this does not, in my mind, obsolete SIDAL.

It does suggest to me that we ought to moving towards structures characterized by a (large) number of small, fast SIDAL cycles operating in a collaborative, associative manner (much like the brain?), all under the direction of COM.

I think I can see this and how it would work. Doubtless there are existing examples of this construct. The critical issue is getting from here to there. I think this requires significant behavioral change on the part of a significant number of people. Ah, yes, there we have that word again – change.

Anyway, enough of this screed.