TED 2009: Engage
I got a lot out of Barry Schwartz’s book, ‘The Paradox of Choice’ which I read a couple of years ago and the phrase has become one of our household’s verbal shortcuts.
He didn’t talk about this research though at TED. Rather he talked about moral virtue and the need for this to go hand in hand with practical wisdom which is moral will plus moral skill, especially:
- Knowing when and how to make exceptions
- Knowing when and how to improvise
- Knowing how to use moral skills in the service of the right aims
Reassuringly, apparently one doesn’t need to be brilliant to be wise.
The combination of rules and incentives are not enough to get a job done. Scripts are insurance policies against disaster but they also ensure mediocrity. Too many rules prevent improvisation.
The keys to remoralising work are to celebrate moral exemplars and to combine will, skill and people knowledge in taking action at work.
Liz Coleman - argued that our eduction system has not been preparing people to be good citizens. She related this to the increase in specialisation arguing that the value of the educated generalist has declined. I have considerable self-interested sympathy for her argument. I often wonder whether, if I had a more specific and technical skillset, I would make more money and increase my work satisfaction…but that’s an aside….
She stated that there is a combination of 5 things that together have not served us well:
- Fragmentation of knowledge
- Technical mastery
- Neutrality of values
- Oversimplification of civic engagement
- Idealisation of the expert.
Instead she advocates an action oriented curriculum that blends disciplines in the service of solving the problems that really matter. Examples of the disciplines that are required include: rhetoric, design, mediation, improvisation, qualitative reasoning and technology.
This should be supplemented by practitioners joining the curriculum and students moving outside the classroom.
I hope this talk goes up the site soon as there are a number of people I know who would find it both interesting and challenging.
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