Hi Eric,
What I 'got out of', was being a high level national and international level
policy maker. I used to think that that was where you could make a
difference.
Since then I have worked at the grassroots level - working with operational
level people and I think that I have been more instrumental by working in
that way.
What I don't do is tilt at windmills. I do not work with a counsel of
despair and say ' there is nothing to be done within the system as ti now
is'. By constantly pushing at the boundaries of what is one can slowly
change what is.
Having said that school to work is the most difficult area of all. The great
moaning about the inability of school systems to change comes from people
who themselves are singularly unable and unwilling to change themselves.
School to work is where two great inertia bound systems collide. There is
nothing quite like it anywhere else in public policy.
I don't remove myself from the field - I just change the place from where I
mount my expeditions. When I look at the membership list of that OECD group
in 1992 I am fascinated to note that more than half of those members who
remain in active working life have made a similar decision to me to change
their focus from policy level work to operational level work.
Phillip Capper
-----Original Message-----
From: MnFamilyMan@aol.com [mailto:MnFamilyMan@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 19 February 2002 1:36 p.m.
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Jumping Ship
In a message dated 2/18/2002 2:56:12 PM Central Standard Time,
phillip.capper@webresearch.co.nz writes:
Education reform since 'A Nation at Risk' has sought to align the
school systems in English speaking countries even more towards the
requirements of the economic system (that document did for us all - not
just
the USA).
That's why I got out.
Phillip,
The reason for maintaining resisitance against the policy-makers is the
same reason you became disgusted with the field.
I have spent numerous hours reading and posting to XMCA because I feel it
necessary to resist against policy-makers, granted xmca is rather low on the
policy totem but still it is of much greater significance then writing
editorials to my local newspaper.
Practice is the substance of change and removing oneself from active
practice will only remove oneself from active understanding of the actual
substance one is theorizing about.
Eric Ramberg
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 01 2002 - 01:00:20 PST