'I taught it, they didn't learn it, it's on them' Thu 19 Mar 09

IT's attitude towards helping our users learn may need some re-thinking

I heard a great story on NPR yesterday, "D.C. Schools Chief Turns To Rookie Teacher Corps".  It's about Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools and what she is doing to improve the schools there.  It's a great story and worth listening to.

What really caught my attention was a section where they talked about the attitude displayed by some teachers:

Betts [a school principal] says most of the young teachers he's hired believe their success should be measured by their students' success. What's unacceptable, he says, is the attitude that goes something like this: I don't know what happened, I taught them the information.

"If you live in the camp, 'I taught it, they didn't learn it, it's on them,' then you're not going to survive," the principal says.

Boy that really hit home.  It sounds an awful lot like what you hear about our users.

It would help if people read the manuals and knew more about operating their PCs but whining about it won't help the situation.  Our job is to make sure people are trained on our systems and maybe we have to be flexible in how we teach.  This may mean classes, online training, videos, one-on-one, whatever it takes.

Maybe we should take a cue from Principal Betts and measure our success by the success of our users.

Just a thought.  What do you think about this?

"I Thought We Were Supposed To Get Answers" photo by Cayusa

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• Oh why won't they ever learn?
• Why It's Time to Lose the Snide IT Attitude
• The Art of Influence / The Influence Continuum
• Or the posts in the "Communications" category