Learning Connections for Leaders
                                                                             Making Relevant Associations

       Learning is much more than the accumulation of facts and figures. And, it is much more than the depositing of raw data, even data considered relevant by teachers, into the heads of students or staff. Real learning is the ability to make relevant connections with ideas by incorporating them into our own real experiences. In other words, if teachers are not helping students to see the learning material as real and relevant to them, they are failing to communicate with them in a way that will enable the students to learn and remember. There is a real learning disability that is being created in many of the classrooms of our educational system and it is not always the fault of the teachers. Those teachers who are forced to teach to the test in order to raise student scores are also victims of a system that is promoting a real learning disability that is already manifesting itself in our society in various ways.

       Recently, a professor of one our more prestigious institutions of higher learning was being interviewed about a book he was selling regarding the life of Abraham Lincoln. During the interview, the professor brought up the fact that students often asked him how Lincoln might deal with certain current moral or ethical questions. This caught the interest of the interviewer who appropriately asked him how he had answered those curious students who were trying to make real present day connections with their understanding of Lincoln. However, instead of giving the students a real idea, even if hypothetical, of how Lincoln would approach certain moral issues, this professor said he answered by telling them only that Lincoln lived in a different time and would not have to deal with these present day moral issues to which they were referring.

       Clearly, this professor failed as a teacher in several ways to help his students learn by making the relevant connections of the learning material with their present lives. He also failed to help them make valuable connections with the society in which they will soon be expected to work and to contribute. And, he failed to make his learning information about the great leader Abraham Lincoln real enough to the students that they could discover something valuable in themselves to develop. And, whether or not this professor considered Lincoln a role model for his students, there are many aspects of Lincoln’s life that become great learning opportunities for the students with a teacher who is willing and able to help them make the appropriate connections with their world.

       This is just one of many cases that reflect how the “data” on a subject is not enough to help the students make the appropriate connections that they will remember and incorporate into their lives in some relevant way. Through both schools with improved cultural context and curriculum and teachers who are allowed to teach without just teaching to the test for the improvement of test scores, students can learn to make those important and relevant connections that bring a subject to life for them and help them incorporate it into their thinking in a way that they will remember and use in the future.

       Another example of the failure to make the appropriate connections occurred recently that might have had devastating consequences if it were not for the quick actions of a few heroic individuals. A terrorist had been allowed to board a flight from Yemen to Amsterdam to Detroit with no luggage, no winter clothes and a one way ticket on Christmas Day. And, if it were not for the actions of a few of the passengers, he may have succeeded in blowing up the jet over Detroit. His father had previously told officials at the American embassy in Yemen about his son’s dangerous and increasingly radical behavior. Yet, even with all of these obvious “red flags” of danger, there were no connections made by intelligence workers to put the young man on the “no fly” list to avoid a potential terrorist hit. And, no person made the obvious connections to suspect the potential danger from a man paying cash for a one way ticket and boarding planes in two airports with no luggage and no warm clothes in the dead of winter.

       This was a near catastrophic system failure to allow such an obvious security risk to board an airplane in the first place. However, it was not the type of system failure that most people think. It was the inability to allow the intelligence people involved to make the appropriate connections and to act on clearly suspicious data without the fear of reprisals (by competing individuals or agencies) that was the real failure of the system. One such retired official in defense of the system commented that there was not enough “actionable data” to put the terrorist on the “no fly” list. Clearly, in this case there was plenty of “actionable data” to have prevented this young man from attempting to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day. However, this retired official’s comment reflects how much the workers in a bureaucracy are consumed by the data to the extent that they have a learning disability and are no longer able to connect the dots to make the clearly relevant and important associations. This is a learning block that has developed over the years. They cannot see the forest for the trees and much of this obsession with irrelevant or unnecessary data has been encouraged in a school system or a bureaucracy that fails to empower students or employees to learn by association.

       We can and must do much better in government and in education. Collaborative leaders in government and education can help by working to build learning organizations that allow for workers and students to make appropriate associations and then to take the next step based upon meaningful and substantive data that has a firm foundation in the reality of the situation and not just the data itself. In the case of this Christmas Day Terrorist Attempt on the Jetliner over Detroit, even if more information was necessary when the boy’s father reported his concern about his son’s radical behavior, immediate action should have been taken. Considering the very relevant and important source of a father’s concern and knowledge of his son, a knowledgeable and empowered security officer would move to immediately keep this person off of any airliner heading to the U.S. And, then as more information was collected, further steps could have been taken to understand the extent of his involvement with various terrorist groups.

        However, the key here is found in building a real learning organization instead of a bureaucratic system of red tape and data collection. In a learning organization individuals and leaders know what is relevant from what is not and are able to make the appropriate connections. In bureaucracies people are consumed with forms, data accumulation and cumbersome procedures that often prevent them from applying what they know to be useful and very relevant information and acting on it in a timely manner. With the help of an educational system that teaches students how to make relevant connections and to learn and to grow from them, much better organizations and agencies can be developed with workers who share information and help each other to take immediate action. Such collaborative learning abilities are becoming a greater necessity in a dangerous and aggressive world.

 Copyright 2010, Global Leadership Resources: For teaching or classroom use only.

                                                                                     Discussion Questions

  1. What is real learning? Why is learning much more than the accumulation of facts and figures? How is it much more than the depositing of data in students’ minds?
  2. How is learning incorporated into the real experiences of individuals?
  3. Discuss how teachers can help students to make the appropriate connections of learning materials to their own experiences?
  4. In what ways did the Professor fail to help his students learn from Lincoln? What valuable lessons could he have taught them? Why is this important for learning?
  5. Discuss the example of the terrorist attack over Detroit. Why did the security people and the intelligence community fail to make the appropriate connections?
  6. What kind of systemic failure in intelligence occurred in allowing the terrorist to board a flight to the U.S.? How could it have been prevented?
  7. What kinds of learning disabilities are being encouraged with a system of education that mainly teaches to the test?
  8. Discuss ways that curriculum can be improved to help students and employees learn by association and the connections with real experiences?
  9. Discuss the differences between a learning organization and a bureaucracy.
  10. How do learning organizations create collaborative learners and leaders and improve the performance of employees?

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