Tuesday, March 24, 2015

But You've Been Trained

Tom Nichols wrote this paragraph within a blog post about what it is like being a professor. This part resonated with me because often people attend a training session so now they are trained and in some way that is equal with being fully competent now. Three days in training, five days...a month...

Tom Nichols writes:
... "It doesn’t work that way. Education (as opposed to training, a distinction almost no one bothers to make anymore) takes time. It requires reading, writing, discussion, and reflection. It is a cumulative process. You cannot liquefy it and pour it down someone’s throat in a day, no more than you can eat all of your meals for a year in a single week." ...

You've sent your staff to be trained. Does your plan recognize education too? It was/is your money and billable time...

You've been trained, are you focusing on your education too? It's your career...

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Great post! It makes we wonder about what really matters when we need to take professional and personal decisions about our future.

Anonymous said...

Too true Steve! I've also encountered the perception by some that training can be purchased like an "off the shelf" product. It's actually counter-productive to the education process.
Cheers, Mark

wyankey said...

Could not agree more! I have experienced time and time again how people expect to learn in a "Matrix" style; simply plug in and download the information. Not to mention, after a training session they go right back to using other programs and processes without exploring and applying their new knowledge. Education is as much about knowing how something works as it is knowing how to use it.

Victoria Shipley, A.I.A. said...

This post was spot on. It never occurred to me that what we (professors) do in the classroom is improv. While we start out with a game plan, changes are made constantly, based on students mostly (in my experience). Even with careful planning and teaching the same material, adjustments must be made with each new group of students. Of course there is always the challenge of software that changes every year (like Autodesk products), which requires new research on our part, new screenshots, new videos, techniques to be changed, and new commands included.

So much energy is used to keep the skilled students interested while seriously helping those that cannot understand the most basic information. Grading does take a long time, and even longer still, coming up with a good testing instrument that is fair and clear.

DaveP said...

Great point.
We have (at least) one guy in the office that has "been trained" in Revit.
Three times.
He's never actually USED it, so after several months, he had to pretty much start from scratch again. Twice.

He is good at SketchUp, though...

Steve said...

I've seen a few repeat students at firms over the years. :)

One I saw five times I think, Revit finally "took" the fifth time. Five times is the charm as they say?