The Glade 4.0

Our system does a good enough job of producing people like that anyway.

_________________


Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

Where exactly do you get the idea that their youth is being "taken from you"? Or this "working every waking hour" bit. Even your starcraft thing is really silly; Korean players tend to take Starcraft as seriously as anything else; that's the reason pro Starcraft players are referred to as "foreigners" if they aren't Korean; Korea dominates it. It isn't just a bunch of kids sneaking in a game of starcraft here and there. There's also a number of Korean-made MMOs out there. Do you think those are only played by people over age 25?

Believe it or not, Korean parents do love and care about their kids and want them to be successful. Yes, the culture has a more intense work ethic than we do, but you are wildly exaggerating how pervasive it is, and the nature of it. This is just like the stories about Korean mothers who "train" their daughters to be good wives so an American soldier will marry them, bring them to the U.S., and then the family can follow and start a business. Yes, it happens all the time; that's why there's so many Korean-owned businesses around military installations and so many Korean people working on post. That, however, does not mean every single Korean girl is raised to get an American husband; most aren't. There's nowhere near enough Americans to go around.



I didn't say we should be emulating this system. What you're describing is true for some South Koreans, but hardly for all of them, and in any case, amazing as it may seem, they do things other than study even if life is really intense for them. You're trying to homogenize their culture down to this one thing as if every South Korean thinks and acts exactly the same way.

As for these "cram schools"; they include quite a bit, not just more studying. Children also go to them for things like piano lessons, martial arts, art, or swimming. All things they'd go to after school programs for in the U.S. They just happen to go to a "school" for it in Korea.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Forget Korea. I'm increasingly of the opinion Switzerland has the most balanced and sensible overall society on earth.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Xequecal:

Until you stop trying to remove the work and labor involved in education from education, you will have a woefully non-competitive and non-valued educational skillset. Your politics are anathema to education; your politics are anathema to learning, because you don't believe in personal ownership, your don't believe in personal responsibility, and you don't believe in corrective consequences. You may think you do, but every post on these forums, every argument, every politic position you've ever taken tells me ...

You're afraid of work and things that require work, because effort IS NOT egalitarian.

_________________

Meh. I wouldn't want my kids to grow up in South Korea.

Play; developing imagination and dreams and such, is the most important part of childhood. Some cultures are far too ... driven, for lack of a better world. Let children be children. Yes, teach them, but balance is important.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

First, it seems to me that when a lot of people talk about "corrective consequences," they don't mean, "You screw up, you get burned, and then you learn from the mistake." What they actually want to happen when they talk about implementing consequences is: "If you screw up, you are forever screwed with no second chance, and everyone else gets to learn from your example."

Second, a lot of people don't think school/education is about learning at all, but that education should be some kind of crucible to see if you're hardcore and dedicated enough to deserve a degree, and that what you actually learned is mostly secondary in determining whether you get the degree or not. These are the professors that assign an APA-style paper and then immediately fail all students that turn in a paper with Microsoft Word default 1.25" margins rather than the APA 1" margin standard. They're the ones that say you should fail the class if you're a single minute late to any class meeting. (Several people from this board expressed this sentiment to me when I was in college and complained about problems with a class.) They actively look for excuses to fail as many students as possible, under the logic that only the ones who are dedicated enough to pore over their stuff for hours and hours, ironing out every single possible little minute detail, should be able to pass.

As you have said many times, rote memorization is not learning. The increasingly common US practice of "teaching the test" and forcing students to memorize test material by rote is extensively criticized by conservatives as counterproductive. But that is exactly what the Koreans are doing, they're just working harder at it. Their scores are better, but with the vast amount of effort they put in you would expect that. As the article states, they're not that much better. They are not learning, because it's not ABOUT learning, it's about proving that they can work hard enough to deserve a high place in society.

Sometimes, that is the consequence. Never mind that your response is a straw-man, I'll actually overlook it. Sometimes, the consequences of your actions are irreparable. That's part of reality.Thank you for validating my previous post: you just said you are opposed to work in education. Well, as it happens, education is a crucible designed to test your dedication to an endeavour; at least, that's what post-secondary education is, should, and must be to be competitive. The countries kicking our *** in the education game take that mindset for granted. Education is work; education requires effort; effort is not egalitarian. Those three statements matter.They should, considering that equates to approximately a 20% reduction in content over an equal number of pages. It also indicates a failure to appropriately retain information and search for publication standards. That's not a minor mistake at all; that's a completely inexcusable attempt to ignore assignment standards and requirements.No one on these forums expressed that sentiment; everyone on these forums expressed the same sentiment regarding tardiness to class that they do for work -- if you want a job or an education, the responsibility for being on time lies with you.No, you're just lazy; every aspect of our education system belies the last statement. Our graduates can't read; our college students are non-competitive against international 8th graders. Our degree mills are averaging 5 year turn around on graduates with a 75% non-completion rate; everyone keeps saying we need more college graduates, but not one is saying we need harder working students.

A teacher's job, if you want to get down to it, is to certify that you have acquired the knowledge appropriate for a given professional or standardized title or set of privileges. If that benchmark is a professional certification, no one quibbles about the failure rate. If that benchmark is a "High School Diploma," "Bachelor's Degree," etc.; standards keep getting lowered because of social engineering and a delusional understanding of equality.The article says they aren't much better, because it doesn't want to admit the truth: South Koreans are better educated and better trained to apply their education to the real world than Americans. That said, the situation you're now lamenting is the direct result of the positions you indicated earlier in your post. Students don't want to work, but parents want results; government wants results; funders want results; but no one wants to work at it. So we teach the test, we favor the test scores, and in the real world, these people fail miserably.

_________________

Work smarter, not harder.

Sometimes you need to work hard, but working hard shouldn't be the goal.

The absolute best people at process improvement are lazy smart people who also have a strong work ethic. Where work ethic means getting the work done, not necessarily loving to slave away for 14 hour days.

Sure, that's part of reality. The issue is a lot of people seem to think this should be baked into the system by design. That one test determines your whole life's course, if you screw it up, you can't go back and try again, you already failed, you don't get another chance.



You're not supposed to work in education, you're supposed to learn. Sometimes learning takes a lot of work, sometimes it doesn't. The problem is with advocating is the "work" should be of primary importance, rather than the learning. Someone that learns the material despite putting in minimal effort should be permanently failed because they didn't prove themselves worthy, while someone who works their *** off but still doesn't get it should be given chance after chance.



I'm in 100% agreement with this, I'm surprised you posted this because this is my whole point. If you learn the material, you should pass, regardless of the amount of "work" that required. If you want to make the material harder, that's fine too. But you're not talking about making the material harder, you're talking about implementing arbitrary barriers that disqualify everyone that didn't work hard enough, regardless of whether or not they learned anything.

This made me think of an article I read about a week ago. It was about a study that compared parenting philosophies across different cultures. The study in question only covered a small sample of Western cultures, but it's readily apparent from that that American culture isn't really very concerned with "balance" in their child-rearing in comparison to Europeans.

Oh, right. I should link to it -- this isn't the article I originally read, but it's on the same study.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

No, it isn't. It's about a society that needs to maintain its economic power in order to maintain its military power in order to defend itself from an absurdly hostile neighbor, and another, much larger neighbor, with highly unclear intentions. SK would prefer to be able to do this on its own rather than relying on whatever level of support current U.S. politics happen to provide them with.

There's only so many skilled jobs to be had in Korea; the country is physically very small with a very large population for its size. The education system represents competition for jobs, not "proving" that you "deserve" anything except insofar as being the most-qualified for the job means you deserve it the most.

Yes, their education system focuses on memorization. No one, however, is advocating adopting that. What people are advocating for is the Korean idea that school is about learning, not about "self-esteem", "conflict management", "diversity", or making sure everyone gets a piece of paper and wears a funny hat at the end, like it has become in the U.S. The principle is what people are in favor of, not the actual system.

As for your idea of "one screwup and you're dooooomed FUHEVAH!!!", this is an idea you whip out any time anyone suffering a consequence for any action is brought up. "But why should their life be ruined?!?" Well, in 90% of the cases you bring up it won't be, and in the other 10% because they did something awful and there is no reason they should be on the same basis as those that didn't.

No one is seriously advocating adopting Korea's models; it wouldn't be culturally compatible with the U.S. - if, indeed, any one model works for a country of this size.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If you want to avoid working hard by working smarter, you'd better work your *** off in school. Otherwise, working smarter may not be an option for you.

Who trained you to think only in false dilemmas? Education is work. It requires effort, diligence, and care. It requires force of will and force of action and a whole bunch of other things your argument ignores. But, the question remains, who trained you to only think in false dilemmas?

The set of All Things Learning is part of the set All Things Work. Whether it takes a maximal effort and amount of work or a minimal, learning is still work. You may enjoy it; you may feel it effortless and easy; those are perceptual mitigation, not actual mitigation.

_________________

They aren't. Those people are totally abysmal at process improvement, iterative improvement, continuous improvement, and results oriented process analysis. That said, what I suspect you really meant was ...They aren't lazy and possessed of work ethic; they're smart and possessed of a desire to not waste resources.

_________________

I'm a process guy. Sometimes right before I go to sleep my mind screams at me someplace where about 2 minutes of effort might be duplicated. I doubt a lazy person would have a brain that would think about work while shutting down.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I told my new boss that I was "fundamentally lazy" when she complimented how much work I accomplish, and how I speak up a lot about getting rid of useless work. She didn't like it being stated that way, so had to put it into an acceptable form of business jargon.

_________________
When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Oddly enough, I meant exactly what I said. However, in hindsight I probably didn't include enough detail to be fully understood.

While I don't necessarily disagree with what you state here, the "lazy" part is important. Now what I mean by lazy is that work isn't their only passion. There are plenty of people who match the requirements you list, but are workaholics. They make great process people on paper and often are lauded by the management of some companies, however they are fundamentally worse than "lazy" folks with the qualities I laid out, because they create processes that aren't accepted by "Joe Worker". The "lazy" process guy gets that the vast majority of people don't work because they love what they do, they work because they need to eat. And so their processes are a balance between getting what the company needs and what the employee needs. In short they are long term sustainable and don't burn out employees or fail because employees won't follow the process.

Yeah, what Aizle said here.

Work is not the focus of most people's lives. And really, it's healthier all around if it isn't the focus of your life. Work to live, don't live to work. It's not that you aren't responsible or don't work hard, it's that given a choice, you are spending as little time at your job as you can.

(I.E. I have a reputation at work for volunteering to work every statutory holiday. They think this is because I have a good work ethic. I get time and time-and-a-half for working it, however, which I take as additional vacation time. For every two stat holidays I work, I take three days off.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The other side of that is that it's generally more healthy if you like what you do, or at least don't despise it. Going to work miserable every day is not good for you.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Aizle is horribly wrong, because Aizle doesn't really understand process. For the vast majority of jobs, it doesn't matter how you do the work, as long as the work gets done. When process actually matters, the people he's talking about are horrible at process design and implementation. As a general rule, most managers, team leads, whatever should focus on getting the results they need; process is a later concern. And that applies to most of the jobs you guys hold here at the Glade. Results matter more than how those results were achieved.

_________________

How about providing some examples of when "the process really matters" so you can enlighten us with your great knowledge and wisdom.

Efficiency versus Effectiveness in Process Development is a well-studied branch of Human Resources and Operations Management. From my own experience as a Process Consultant being lazy does me no good; assuming EVERYONE else is stubborn, lazy and stupid however has been invaluable.

_________________

The axiom, "Work smarter, not harder," gives the false impression that working smart is not, in and of itself, hard work. Working smart involves a lot of preparation, and all too often, someone who thinks they are "working smarter, not harder" gets the impression that they can avoid that preparation because it's work, and they are "working smarter, not harder."

A solid work ethic does not mean someone works works works all the time, no time for fun just work work work. That's just something a lazy **** thinks, especially one who doesn't know what, "Work smarter, not harder," actually means. Rather, a solid work ethic involves recognizing the value of work now with regards to the amount of work you will have to do in the future. This is complicated by the fact that most work to reduce the amount of work required in the future benefits people beside yourself, and usually to a greater degree, leading to the perception that you are working so that other people don't have to.

To be fair, most jobs in today's economy probably exist exclusively for the purpose of allowing people other than yourself to work less. To whit, we have an entire multi-billion dollar industry with thousands of very smart people working very hard so that the rest of you lazy assholes don't have to walk everywhere.

Another example, Talya frequently ***** to me about piss poor trouble tickets people send her. And why should they send her anything else? Those trouble tickets are work for them to write, and they don't help the person writing it. The ticket only helps Talya. Why should the tier 1 desktop support monkey go through the work of writing a decent ticket? He's supposed to be working smarter, not harder. So is Talya. He doesn't have to write trouble tickets. One shitty IT job is the same as the next, so it doesn't even matter if he gets fired. All he does is make Talya look good. Except, his only job is to work hard so that Talya can work smart. Furthermore, if he wrote halfway decent tickets, Talya is likely to do something like recommend him for something other than grunt support monkey work.

Now, as to how this ties back to education, you don't learn the good stuff without some work. You can't sit in a classroom and think that just because I'm talking, you're going to learn a goddamn thing. You're going to have to practice. You're going to have to do some calculations. You'll have to analyze a few circuits. You'll have to get a circuit board, wire it up, and turn the power on. You may even have to see something pop and start smoking. You may have to do some algebra to figure out what the **** went wrong.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

From my experience, when people say to me WSNH, they mean be lazy and not do something right. There are a variety of reasons why I want people to properly document things they do on my networks or do installs that don't involve letting cables lay around everywhere. I don't give a **** if they don't understand why. **** do it. Don't half-ass it in the name of getting to lunch faster.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I have worked for managers who wanted processes just to get credit for having them, not because they actually made things work better/faster/more efficiently. It made it look like they were Doing Something.

Since the re-org where most of the dept was let go, the new big thing at work now is Lean Six Sigma. I swear, if you throw those words in your annual results, the managers go "ooooh."

But basically, I have to anticipate where people are going to screw things up. If they are consistently having problems in one area, I have to figure out if it's due to a lack of training, simple idiocy, or if there's a need for changing the process itself. (Usually, though, it's a combination.) If processes don't make sense to the people implementing them, they won't follow them. I don't have time to fix larger mistakes that could have been avoided. So I need to put in the effort up front (training, good processes) to make it work smoothly down the line. (I work in R&D. Delays are bad.)

We're dealing with a half-assed system implementation now. Shortcuts were taken, and the overall migration strategy was poorly thought out. The dept that was responsible has dumped it in our laps now that we've noticed the problems. It's cost us a lot of hours and money to address after the fact, and may result in us having to repeat critical studies.

So, the work was done, and the objectives were met according to the project time lines, but the work was not done right because the system is nearly unusable.

_________________
When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?