Blair's Blog

Not for me, though.  A friend just picked up his new Triumph Thruxton today in Calgary.  Mark came in from out of town by shuttle bus and I met him at the drop-off and gave him a ride to the dealer.  Sean and his son met us there, too. 
It was really busy at the dealer since today was just about the first nice Saturday this spring. The staff was pretty busy. Mark needed to get some gear – riding pants and boots plus a tank bag to allow him to get his shoes home! Once that was done, he got keys for his new bike, put the plate on had the salesman give him the “care and feeding” speech. Then we were ready to go – well, ready once we retrieved Sean and Jordan from the Tim Horton’s across the street…

So we headed out for a ride – Mark’s first in quite a few years (14 I think he said since he last had a bike).  We headed east out of town and all had a nice lunch together at the Station in Strathmore.  Already we are thinking about how to arrange a little road trip! After lunch we took a few hero shots in the parking lot and then headed for home.

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After finishing Daniel Pink’s book Drive, which I reviewed in a previous post, I heard about a new effort by Seth Godin discussing the school system as it exists today throughout the western world. Godin is an fascinating individual who’s interests lie mostly in marketing, leadership and change. He has written several books – one I particularly like is a short read called The Dip; it is about the discernment required, when learning a new skill, to know how and when to pursue mastery. Maybe I’ll re-read it one day and put a review up.

Stop Stealing Dreams is described as a manifesto that poses hard questions about the effectiveness of public schools in order to start a discussion about how the school system could be turned into something that is far more relevant to the world our kids will live and work in. Godin says, “It’s a series of provocations, ones that might resonate and that I hope will provoke conversation.” The entire Stop Stealing Dreams manifesto is available in several formats (PDF, ePub, HTML) on the web, grab a copy that suits you and have a read.

The tie in to Daniel Pink is that in Drive, there is some discussion of how the school system, as it currently exists, harms kid’s innate curiosity, their natural desire for purpose and need for mastery by sticking to extrinsic, carrot and stick, forms of motivation. Godin’s manifesto not only supports that view, but goes further to state that the school system, by its very design, suppresses individual creativity and curiosity in favour of an outmoded “drill & kill” reliance on a memorization-based fixed curriculum. If the 21st century is the knowledge age, then school’s mission “to create homogenized, obedient, satisfied workers and pliant, eager consumers“, based on the needs of the early 20th century industrialized economy, is simply out-dated and counter-productive.

What would school look like if the goal was to graduate creative, independent, insightful and innovative young adults and unleash them on the world?

What would school look like if conformity was not the highest goal of the system of education?

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…not the basketball – that isn’t interesting.  But the month of March has been.

We’ve had quite a bit going on over the past few weeks.  Mark and I did a Father/Son outing with his boy’s club to launch model rockets, we had a road trip to Lethbridge to celebrate my uncle’s 90th birthday, we saw some interesting aircraft, we were at a traditional RCAF mess dinner.  On top of all this there was lots of business at work and around the house.    Here are a few pictures of all the excitement:

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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink, 2009, Riverhead (ISBN: 978-1594488849)

This is a very thought provoking book that complements other books that I’ve read over the past while. In particular, it complements the ideas found in The Element by Ken Robinson which I reviewed a couple of years ago. Like The Element, this was an audiobook, however this time I got distracted part way through and it took about 8 months to finish it off. Brenda and I listened to the last three chapters on a road trip to Lethbridge last weekend.

Dan Pink’s thesis is similar to Ken Robinson’s view that personal fulfillment is tied to having interest, passion and opportunity combine in a way that allows individual potential to be realized. In Drive, however, the idea is broader and looks to the source of personal motivation, the idea that each of us is best motivated to achieve a desired outcome when we are driven by autonomy, purpose and mastery. That is, when we choose (autonomously) to do something meaningful (that has purpose) through the exercise of our skills and strengths (mastery) we will persevere to accomplish our aims. This internal or “intrinsic” motivation is far more powerful than external (“extrinsic”) motivation – the carrot and stick approach. The majority of the book circles around this idea and supports it with fascinating research and examples

What struck a particular cord with me was how Pink argues that the industrial model of work and education that has been the norm over the past 3 or 4 generations is ill-suited for the creative, collaborative demands of the 21st century knowledge based economy. Mediocrity beckons to any of us that bow to the demands of the social systems that require compliance and “fitting in” as the prerequisites to getting into the “right” school, getting a good job in a cube farm and retiring with a fat pension. It isn’t the 1950’s anymore. I look at my kid’s school and it is all too clear that the purpose of public education is to bash the spark of creativity and individuality out of my children and shame them into conforming, fitting in and memorizing facts that they could look up on Google in a heartbeat. I don’t want my kids to learn compliance – I want them to be engaged in life, to think on their feet, to challenge the status quo and to seek purpose in something greater than themselves.

This clip, from The RSA, is where I first heard of Daniel Pink and Drive – it is well worth spending 10 minutes watching.

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