Mike,

Bravo for tackling a question most of us have been sidestepping - at least here .

I want to start by making a couple of observations. While a lot of my educational experiences derive from that Industrial Age model you mention (pioneered by Dewey, BTW), three of them weren't; and they have heavily influenced by thinking.

First, I grew up in a family where dinner conversation was quite wide ranging and, often, very "debate" oriented. My best friend once defined our dinner conversations as "feeding time at the shark pool". This meant that there was an incredible pressure to always be able to either back up what I was saying or to learn 9really quickly!) how to qualify it.

Second, and it's another family thing, both my parents (and a number of other relatives) were quite active in political causes of various and sundry types, so I grew up in an atmosphere where organizing on the ground politics was "normal", and a lot of discussions were surrounding the best way to analyze and communicate politically charged situations / messages.

Both of these were not what is normally called "education" but, as almost all studies will show, family "culture" is at least as important for outcomes as is the formal education system.

The final difference was that i went to a private school for three years in Toronto; part of what is called the Headmaster's League (Royal St. George's College). Years after I left, I was back on the campus getting a tour from the then Head Master, and I asked if the school was still the same. He looked at me and, with a collegial smile, said "Oh yes, we are still teaching the boys to rule". That experience still haunts me, because that was exactly what they were doing; none of the workers and conscripts, this was officers and CEOs. Scary stuff in many ways, but I certainly internalized a lot of what they taught, even if not in the manner they expected .

When I compare these three educational experiences with my formal, Industrial Age ones (high school, most of university), I find that what I learned in the latter is, maybe, 25% of what I learned from the former.

So, why the freakin' biographical stuff? Put simply, without knowing that background, most of what I say about education doesn't make much sense without it .

So, on to education and PME in particular.

First, as an ethical positioning, each and every officer and NCO who serves has chosen to serve (now at least) and, by that service, execute one of the core requirements of a society; the assurance of collective security. That, to my mind, implies a reciprocal contract on the part of society, which is to require that these people, in turn, have access to the best possible education (NOT training) for them to be citizens both after and during service.

Second, by education in this instance, I am referring to any formalized activities that encourage the learning by individuals of a) how to think in a critical manner, b) how to know the value limits of their thinking, c) learn as much about themselves as possible (which is a value limit we don't often recognize), and d) engage in "civilized discourse" and social action (i.e. don't go on a shooting spree when told you can't become a CEO right out of getting your MBA at 25....).

Third, and in this I am very Socratic, always "ask the man who knows". But, in the asking, make sure that you know enough to ask the right questions which, in my usual tangential manner, brings me back to Mike's point about "what to teach" and "when".

The first thing that always needs to be taught is the language of the discussion or, to be more accurate, enough of the grammar and vocabulary that you can order a beer and find a washroom (metaphorically.....). the other "first thing" that needs to be taught is the relevant "stories". Did you guys know that for most of it's existence, the Roman Empire's PME was based on stories? I'm not joking about this (if you're masochistic, read this paper) and it happened for several excellent reasons.

First, reading is a pain (thus speaks the guy who reads 1-2 books / articles a day ). In terms of internalizing a piece of knowledge, hearing it in a story with emotions attached is much more memorable (anywhere between 50% and 800% [yes, that's not a typo - eight hundred] according to Bateson). This, BTW, is one of the reasons why "fairy tales", at least in their original forms, tended to be so gruesome - they were designed to tie an emotion into an action sequence.

Second (sort of), learning the "language" is an iterative process. You can get it from either formal instruction or stories or immersion, just to name the major sources. Regardless of where you get it, you need it in order to make sense of what is being discussed, so it is a crucial component of an education. Think about it for a sec; if I started talking about "Like, you know, those dudes who, like, walk around with guns" instead of "infantry", how would you react to me? When I talk about "translating", this is a lot of what I am talking about.

Outside of the language and stories that underlie the discussion in the area of knowledge, "what" and "when" are, pretty much, irrelevant since any formalization of them will, automatically, be out of date by the time they are formalized and communicated. Think about "They are always fighting the last war" as an example. The what and when, in this instance, are an example of a poorly developed area of knowledge in the sense of there are wrong answers, but no right ones except, possibly, general principles.

Now, having said that, I am going to completely contradict myself with one absolutely glaring exception: what and when will be set by the organization and will act as gatekeepers for survival and promotion within the organization. This has absolutely nothing to do with the stated purpose of the organization but, rather, is solely dependent on internally constructed environment of that organization. Think about "The Japanese are our opponent, the Navy is our enemy" for an example. All too often, people who excel at fulfilling the function of an organization run afoul of the internally constructed environment of that organization (cf Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think).

This problem is a paradox that is apparent in pretty much every culture I've looked at, so I'm assuming it is a human constant. Or, in other words, and education needs to reinforce the meme of "do what you have to in order to do what needs to be done". And this paradox is crucial to what GEN Dempsey is now dealing with in, for example, the work on leader development.