Formal Education-Practical
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Germ
The trick is opening a community-wide set of eyes to the potential of formal education.
Great points! I believe formal education will gain greater momentum with the incoming generation. Gen-Y wants life-work balance, choice, credentials and counseling (feedback, How am I doing?) more so than previous generations. Despite the media reports that the US Army is getting only 70-80% High School grad equivalents, the incoming generation has an opportunity to reinvent, retrain and retool themselves to become something. The lifelong learning process and culture that all services want to develop will start with the recruiting poster and continue into the first day of Basic Training. Linking all training together can build a huge amount of real credit hours towards something. You say, "great idea, getting three credits for weapons expertise only gives me elective credits." True, the kicker is Math and English. The reason many of our "experienced" and "practical" are so anti-intellectual, is that they are borderline illiterate. They have trouble balancing their checkbook or writing a letter home, much more an argumentative paragraph with a topic sentence, three arguments and a concluding sentence. Here is the secret--developmental stages (ball bearings)
Vignette: When I taught Soldiers down range, the University made me teach Math even though I wanted to teach something like "Leadership and Motivation." (don't we all?) The University said, "Soldiers need Math." "We have over 20 Soldiers that need pre-Algebra." On day one, I asked them, "How many of you haven't seen a math book since High School?" Of course, they all raised their hands. "How many of you truly hate Math?" All continued to raise their hands. So, why were they there? "You are successful Soldiers, right? You are in a different place now (developmental psychology). You have learned how to train, retain knowledge and even teach subordinates. You will be successful in this Math course because you are ready to be disciplined, do the homework problems and crawl, walk, run through this course." There were lots of screams over the next 12 weeks, but they actually learned math and became confident in their ability to learn and teach themselves.
We need to instill discipline in our NCO Corps to push themselves academically while also in the "Git-r-done" & "school of hard knocks" mentality. It will take a generation of leaders to change the culture. NCOs need to know that when they leave service, they get to take their ability to learn, their college degree with them.
There is so much learning occurring downrange. The amount of experience that we have right now is simply amazing. The technical skills working with modern equipment. If Soldiers could reflectively journal this learning about themselves, how they connected issues? If they could communicate this in well written prose. Should commanders emphasize Math & English proficiency like PT, weapons qualification and Warrior Tasks? I believe it should be linked to the unit and not a basic skills class at the ed center. Now, we're starting to change culture.