At 07:36 PM 5/5/97 -0400, Michael Gort wrote:
>I am attending the Society of Organizational Learning Core Course this
>week. Daniel Kim told a story of a teacher who was given a "difficult"
>class, a class of slow learners. Not willing to take this class at face
>value, he went to the files and found that the class IQs were numbers like
>125, 146, 138 and so on. He went back to the class and told them that they
>were not stupid, they had very high IQs and that they were very capable of
>learning at the same pace as other classes. The class began to perform at
>or above "normal" levels. The principal was amazed and invited the teacher
>in to talk about his special techniques. The teacher said, "I did not use
>any special techniques. I looked at their files, saw they had above
>average IQs, told them that they were normal and taught them in the same
>way that I teach other classes." The principal was surprised about the IQ
>information, and asked the teacher to show him were he had looked in the
>file. It turns out that the teacher was looking at their locker numbers!
>
>So how often do we classify students or colleagues as "slow learners" or
>"special needs" or unable to master a technique? And how often does that
>affect the way we view them, and the way they view themselves? How much of
>this is self-fulfilling prophecy?
Dear Mike,
I missed this posting until today. It reminds me of a favorite story
about Jean and Howard, two friends of my parents. Howard could not start
his car to save himself -- some technique quirk, I imagine. Jean could
always start it. So Howard asked her to show him how.
It was a '64 Chevy with manual air vent push/pull knobs down on each side
by the driver's and passenger's knees. Manual chokes were a thing of the
past at this point in time.
Jean hopped in the car, grabbed the air vent knob and said "Just give the
choke a pull while you turn the key and it will start every time."
Howard had to resign himself to the power of 'mental models."
John
John Dicus | jdicus@ourfuture.com
CornerStone Consulting Associates | http://www.ourfuture.com
Learning Organization Consulting / Facilitation / Training
Open Space Technology / Community Building
2761 Stiegler Road, Valley City OH 44280
800-773-8017 | 330-725-2728 (fax)
--"John H. Dicus" <jdicus@ourfuture.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>