Week 36 of 52. Welcome to Drucker Mondays, a 52-week journey through the new book, A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello. Each Monday, we'll feature a Drucker fan and his or her favorite snippet from the week's topic. (Subscribe on this page.) Rick Bee is our guest writer today.
Week 36: Diffusion of Innovation - Public Schools
THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: For much of education today, technology is being used to teach skills and enrich the educational experience through additional resources not previously available. What may be missing from some classroom strategies is the use of technology to allow more time to identify the strengths and deficiencies of students, and the use of that time for each student to develop their own strengths and shore up disabling weakness.
RICK BEE'S FAVORITE DRUCKER INSIGHTS from Week 36, pages 286-293:
• Tom Luce, attorney and founder of Just for Kids on why he did it: “So I began this concept of Just for Kids, an effort that, to me, raises the essence of the problem; too often no one is focused on the needs of the kids. People are focused more on the needs of the education establishment…”
• Drucker on the problem of large schools: “I believe that in elementary schools with more than three or four hundred pupils, the principal doesn’t know the kids anymore, she doesn’t know the parents anymore, and she doesn’t know the teachers anymore.”
• Drucker on the lessons learned from previous technological revolutions: “…embracing the new technology of learning and teaching is a prerequisite for national and cultural success and equally for economic competitiveness.”
• Drucker on educational transformation: “Technology…will not be the most important feature of the transformation in education. Most important will be re-thinking the role and function of schooling—its focus and purpose, its values.”
RICK BEE'S COLOR COMMENTARY:
I come from a long line of educators. Both my parents were in education, I have siblings who taught at the high school level, I teach at the college level and my daughter now teaches in the public school system.
This week’s insights from Drucker, Luce and Bob Buford (Leadership Network) reflect on how the best practices in education begin with the relationship of the teacher and student, not the technology.
Don’t get me wrong. As Drucker identifies, embracing technology is not only important, it is critical to national and cultural success. And, technology is certainly changing how educators educate, students learn and how knowledge is passed along from one person or generation to the next.
Today, within seconds, anyone can use technology to see how long a honey bee lives, find out if brown bears live in the foothills of Southern California, and discover where we might find the cheapest gas. We have amazing knowledge and technology available—in our pockets!
The key, as these writers have so eloquently stated, is the important concept of using this wonderful tool to accomplish the ultimate goal of education in preparing students with the knowledge and tools necessary to succeed and thrive. And to do that the teacher must know the student.
As alumni director for Biola University I am so pleased to see so many of our wonderful School of Education graduates receive the “Teacher of the Year” award designations. And time after time in the report of why they were chosen, I hear “because they love their students!”
While technology continues to change….some things never do!
THIS WEEK'S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY RICK BEE:
Rick Bee is the senior director of alumni and parents at Biola University and has served for more than 35 years in Christian higher education and attended to the needs of the 65,000 alumni of the university. Rick holds a Ph.D. in Education and teaches college students on the topic of “Faith and Money” and has recently co-authored his second book, A Good and Faithful Steward. Rick and his wife, Julie, live in Yorba Linda, Calif.
TO-DO TODAY:
So what can we do to encourage the educational process and the appropriate use of technology in our schools? We need to support our students, understand their needs, provide the resources necessary to stay competitive, encourage the teachers and administrators of our schools to know our students, and use these technologies to help students learn and expand their skills and knowledge. These are no small tasks but critical to the success of the next generation of world and culture leaders.
NEXT MONDAY:
On Sept. 14, 2015, Dale Torry will share his color commentary on Week 37’s topic, “Application of Peter Drucker's Methodology of Social Ecology,” the fifth of five weeks on “Lessons From the Social Sector on the Power of Purpose.”
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