We're a group of doctoral students. This is a class assignment. We're interested in learning how technological changes are impacting schools, universities and businesses. Leaders today have a lot to deal with. Social technology has made giving up control inevitable. Transparency provides leaders the ability to create change by being OPEN, allowing themselves greater ACCOUNTABILITY and creating a sense of CREDIBILITY among followers. Don't forget to check out our essential questions below.
Drexel
Doctorate of Educational Leadership & Management
Monday, May 30, 2011
Seventh Generation Speaks Out About Radical Transparency
The nation’s leading brand of household and personal care products that help protect human health and the environment is working to create a culture of transparency. The founder of Seventh Generation tell us that sharing and being open can actually have a real impact on the bottom line. Tell us what you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The operative word for me at this moment is 'culture.' I am a dance education professor working with an education professor from Goucher College leading 12 of our future educators in rural and township education in South Africa. We walk into very poor classrooms, in very poor schools. We see big smiles on the children's faces who are wearing uniforms and sitting quite properly in their seats. We walk into four wall spaces made of concrete. Floors are dusty. Desks and chairs are broken. Glass has fallen out of windows. No heat. Only fresh, natural air. It is winter. The chalkboards so old that when written on, one has to squint to make sense of what is there, or is it there? When the children write their names or vocabulary words, they take their hands out of their pockets and put on gloves if they have them. Few books reside in the classroom. Pencils are passed out and taken up each day. One eraser per 4 students. Someone comes to a classroom to replace a broken window. The gentleman proceeds, and glass flies all over the children and floor. No cuts, however. This is a day in the life as me and my students perceive it to be in these schools. I have observed and worked in slightly degraded buildings with limited resources in the United States, particularly in DC Public Schools prior to Michele Rhee, and I thought my own children that I taught were deprived. But then, are these children deprived? And, of what?
ReplyDeleteWe donated 5 computers to each of our schools as they desire developing technology labs so that they may, perhaps, find opportunities to link their own children to children throughout the world. I have worked in brand new schools in the United States who have the most amazing computer labs and computers in each and every class, however... hands off! Students may not touch them, or the local education agency has limited Internet use to the point of "what's the point?"
So... Culture... How are we the same? How are we different? The principals, school inspectors, and teachers at these schools in South Africa don't blink an eye at the conditions of their buildings, but they are genuinely concerned about their "learner's" futures. Note: Learner. In America, the land of great accessibility and ability, limits their "student's" own possibilities.
Our students are no different from these learners. They are curious and seek educators who will provide them an opportunity to explore that curiosity that makes each of us a human being regardless of accessibility or the conditions of the physical plant all children go to each day.
Thank you Professor Southerland for sharing your experiences in South Africa. It certainly puts your leadership in a very global lens and helps us understand the challenge of transparency in other cultures.
ReplyDelete