Replying to LO27948 --
Dear Organlearners,
Elixabete Escalona <eliescalona@hotmail.com> writes:
>In response to At, I have to reckon that it sounds
>as if you are not the biggest defensor of the ISO
>9000;-). I can perceive the problems that this
>certification implies in learning and the overall
>improvemant of the organisation.
Greetings dear Elixabete,
Perhaps I have said too little, if not having expressed my self outright
badly.
I am not at all against most of the ISO standards (some 13 000 of them)
which have seen the light coming from the International Organisation for
Standardization (IOS). Let me offer two reasons.
Here in South Africa we have the SABS (South African Bureau of Standards).
I think that it was one of the founding members of the IOS. In Africa only
Algeria (IANOR), Botswana (BOBS), Egypt (EOS), Ethiopia (QSAE), Ghana
(GSB), Kenya (KEBS), Morocco (SNIMA), Nigeria (SON), Tanzania (TBS),
Tunisia (INNORPI) and Zimbabwe (SAZ) are member bodies of the IOS. I have
been to Botswana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe as well as other Southern African
countries which are not body members of the IOS. It is a shame how poor
people in those countries (except perhaps Botswana) are exploited with
goods of poor quality. But here in South Africa the SABS mark on a
certified product has been one of the crucial factors that our industrial
sector did not slide backwards as in most other African countries. The
South African public knows that it can buy with confidence a product with
the SABS mark on it.
Some forty years ago I studied physics at university. In the first year we
used the FPS (foot pound second) and CGS (centimeter gram second) systems
of units. In our second year we used the MKS (meter kilogram second)
system and in our third year the RMKS (rationalised meter kilogram second)
system. Two years after I left university, our country switched over to
the SI (system international d'unites). So I had to learn how to do
conversions between five different systems of units for physical
measurements. It was a nightmare for many of my fellow students.
I now want to use the SI with its seven basic units with symbols m, kg, s,
A, K, mol, cd as an example. The SI does ensure international uniformity
of physical measurements. But it does not ensure good measurements and
especially not good physics based on such measurements.
The eight principles of the ISO SM (Systems Managment) are:
1 Customer focus
2 Leadership
3 Involvement of people
4 Process approach
5 System approach to management
6 Continual improvement
7 Factual approach to decision making
8 Mutually beneficial supplier relationships
The SM does ensure international uniformity of management
principles. But it does not ensure that these principles will be put
to good use, i.e., a good management practice. I can tell some
horrible stories how the "international officiality" ISO certifications
had been misused to keep an iron hand on workers.
It reminds me of the Ten Commandments of Moses. They were intended to
guide living gracefully. But the grace often vapourised when they were
used to defend personal opportunism or fundamentalism.
It also reminds me of the millions of university degrees certified each
year all over the world. These degrees certify that certain sections of
information had been covered. But do they also certify that this
information will be used with good knowledge?
By the way, none of the 8 principles of ISO SM is in conflict with
anything in the five disiciplines of a LO.
>....As the International Organisation for Standardisation
>(ISO) explains, "ISO is more than a quality certification
>for it involves the way of operating within the whole
>organisation." In rder to be certified, the organisation
>muct stick to some requirements and these, do not only
>affect quality but all the procedures in the organisation.
>This is when the problem arises. If ISO 9000 were just
>a quality system within the whole of the organisation,
>incompatibilities could be easily sorted out. However
>(and I would add: unfortunately) this is not the case.
>ISO implies requirements in the whole and some of
>them seem to be against the philosophy of the LO.
For me the philosophy of the LO is one of learning. Many a grand
epistemology (philosophy of knowledge) have been offered through the
centuries. But that which leads to knowledge, namely learning, had been
neglected grossly in most of these epistemologies. This caused authentic
learning to become replaced step by step with rote learning (recipe
learning ;-) The result has now reached omnious proportions which begins
to shake the very foundations of our civilisations.
When the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 specifications are used in a spirit of
authentic learning, they are great tools. But when they are used in an
atmosphere of rote learning, they become misused. One of the "principles"
(if we may call it that) of rote learning is that learning begins with the
consumption of external information. Information which exists outside has
to become knowledge which lives inside. We have to be realistic about all
of the some thirteen thousand ISO certifications. They produce
information, not knowledge. Personal knowledge is that which allows us to
use this ISO information wisely.
Since 1991 I know for sure that it is impossible to obtain uniformity in
tests designed to certificate certain aspects of personal knowledge. I
discovered this while programming CAE (Compuer Assisted Education)
lessons. Many CAE authoring systems are available. But they are all
designed to assist rote learning and not authentic learning. It is easy to
design templates (uniform tests) to create lessons for rote learning. But
I found out that none of these templates suited authentic learning. So it
became a quest for me to design at least one template for authentic
learning. Through the years I have gathered many problems in chemistry
which allow me to discern between rote and authentic learning. So I began
to program procedures which would allow me to guide authentic learners in
solving these problems. I assumed that when I had completed enough such
procedures, I would be able to spot a procedure common to them all which I
then could use as template. To my greatest surprise I found out that it is
not possible. For example, by changing merely the value of one bit of
information in the problem, a completely new procedure had to be
programmed. This is known in complexity theory as the butterfly effect --
a butterfly flap its wings in one continent and a great storm evolves from
it in another continent.
To explain it further, I can make use of mathematics. Solving an authentic
problem is like making use of a function F(X, Y, Z, ...) When the value X2
of X exceeds a certain limit X1 of it, a completely different function
G(X, Y, Z, ...) has to be used. Technically it is said that there is a
discontinuity at the value X1 of X. Authentic learning is rich in such
discontinuities ("un-uniformities").
Wherever creativity is involved, it becomes impossible to reflect all of
the "hidden" (implicate, tacit) order with the "founded" (explicate,
tangible) order. David Bohm was the first to discover this in his work on
Quantum Mechanics. Authentic learning and hence personal knowledge also
depend on constructive creativity. Thus certifications alone cannot tell
all of their "hidden order".
Perhaps we ought to distinguish between authentic SM (systems management)
and rote SM. The difference is that constructive creativity is primordial
to authentic SM. The ISO SM specifications are very useful in authentic
SM, but become stumbling blocks or whips in rote SM.
>Having said that, I would really appreciate if
>I could receive any other views from learners
>who happen to have this certification in their
>organisations or to know learning organisations
>which have it.
I am sorry for coming back to you giving my own viewpoint in an extended
form. It may prevent fellow learners to present "other views", but I hope
they will still do it. But I feel very strongly on the point which I tried
to make, even in my first reply to you.
Once after my daughter complained how the ISO 9000 gets
misused, I decided to work through the entire website of the
IOS at
< http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/ISOOnline.frontpage >
to see how sensitive they are to creativity and hence the
distinction between the "hidden order" and "founded order".
They ought to be because all their ISO specifications concern
the "founded order"! I was sadly very much disappointed for
words such as tacit or implicate do not occur in even one of
their thousands of documents. As for creativity, only six recent
documents had a cursory reference to it.
Think of it, some 140 countries with many learned people in their
standardizaion organisastions participating in the IOS. I must be some
crazy Don Quixote de la Mancha storming time and again this windmill of
the "founded order" causing so much rote learning.
>In respond to At and for all the org-learners,
>my apologies for calling you "experts". I did not
>mean to narrow your area of knowledge but to
>emphasize your profound knowledge in this area.
>Once again, I will put the excuse of my poor
>English and leave it as if I could not find any other
>word in my limited vocabulary ;-).
You are one fine lady, knowing how to use English best when it is not even
your mother tongue. I was simply cautioning against the "tyrrany of
experts" getting its grib once again on our LO-dialogue.
>By the way, and responding to At and Artur,
>let me tell you that I come from the Basque
>Country, Northern Spain, where we have our
>own language: Basque. My name is the Basque
>version of Elisabeth (we love "x" in Basque.) The
>Spanish version is "Isabel".
So that explains the "x". I wonder about the Don Quixote. It is usually
written as Don Quijote. We have an Afrikaans translation of Don Quixote
where the "x" rather than the "j" is used. What is going on here?
It is lovely news to have a Basque person in our LO-dialogue. The Basque
people are enigmatic to Europe. For example, the Basque language (and some
say the Celtic language too) is the only indigenous non-Indo-European
language in Europe. It is like my mother tongue Afrikaans, the only
non-African language indigenous to Africa!
Through the years I have learned that all news here in South Africa (which
is but little) about the Basque people have to be taken in with a big bag
of salt because most of it is rotten.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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