Imagine going to school, and not having to lug a lot of books home with you.
Sure, we want students to be more physical, but carrying books, backpacks laden with “stuff” for school, is probably not the best way to be active.
Cheryl Atkinson, superintendent of schools for DeKalb County, Ga., recently announced that by August 2014, every middle school and high school student in DeKalb will have HIS own device, with all his textbooks on it. Every teacher will have a laptop. Every school will be wireless.
Maureen Downey, education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, discussed this in her Dec. 10,2012, column. Atkinson spoke at a DeKalb Chamber of Commerce luncheon about this topic. “The fact is … (students) can’t wait for us to catch up to their style of learning, nor should they have to,” Downey quoted Atkinson.
Technology is eventually going to change education in more ways than one. School districts are scrounging for resources. Their governmental benefactors want to give them as few resources as possible. Many see public education as a costly burden, that wastes much of what is given to it.
Technology can solve a good bit of that problem. Technology is making books – one of education’s biggest costs – obsolete. One day, we could see many classes taught by interactive videos. Imagine having one teacher who teaches a certain subject well, simultaneously broadcast to multiple schools. How many fewer teachers might we need in the future? How many students might get the best education the school district can offer, vs. multiple teachers of various experience and abilities making learning in one school better than learning in another school in the same district?
EVERYTHING A STUDENT NEEDS IS IN HIS POCKET?
Imagine a student carrying everything he needs to learn with in a device. As innovations progress, devices shrink. Someday, everything students need will be in their pockets. Just think: no books, no pencils, no pads of paper. All those supplies that cost money will be totally unnecessary. If you buy each student a device, it will seem like a bargain, compared to all those other supplies.
Education will be like other industries, using technology to do more, and better, with less. These advances may not go over well with teachers and other employees, who will see job opportunities decrease. On the other hand, technology can help the really good teachers get in front of more students. That can only improve education.
Because of the Internet, information is readily available to students. Teachers can spend less and less time imparting information, and more and more time teaching students the best way to use information. Teachers can be more creative with student interaction, and less structured in the classroom.
Education is slow to use technology to increase productivity and improve quality. The education systems have to overcome old barriers to innovation, so that students can learn in their own style, as Atkinson put it.
Imagine making a great income showing friends something on a gadget. How? Visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
We’ve seen many young people so immersed in their gadgets doing insignificant things for hours on end. We’ve seen gadgets keep kids stationary, when they should be moving more. We’ve seen students lugging backpacks full of books and supplies to and from school.
When the school requires them to use their gadgets for educational purposes, they’ll still spend hours with their gadgets, but doing more fruitful tasks. They won’t be lugging books and supplies to and from school, so maybe they’ll want to get out and move more.
Technology may be a curse as well as a blessing, but it is reality. Let’s hope our educational system catches up with reality sooner rather than later.
Peter
Tag Archives: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION: PART 1
“If I had only an hour to live, I would spend it in this class because it feels like an eternity.”
That was one student’s comment to Jason B. Huett, a technology guru and University of West Georgia professor, when evaluating one of his courses.
Maureen Downey, education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, quoted Huett for the Dec. 10, 2012, edition. Huett was making the point that education is slow to change the way students are taught, despite the technological advances.
But a larger point might be: must students be bored in school?
As Downey paraphrases Huett, a frontier teacher from a century ago would be agape at the changes in the world, but the classroom would still largely look the same.
That teacher probably was taught that school needs to feel like work to a student. School should be the student’s job. When the student finishes school, he would go to a job that would be tedious and hard, so they had to learn to endure that in school.
If you read a typical textbook of yore, it’s hardly something you’d take to the beach to read – unless, of course you were cramming for an exam in the sun.
TEDIUM AND DUPLICATION
But what if teachers concentrated on ways to make learning more fun, or at least enjoyable? Sure, learning IS work, but a century ago, it seemed we taught students how to be good employees – how to duplicate repetitive tasks that they would do in the workplace when they graduated. We taught routine. We taught doing what you are told, and only asking questions if there was something you didn’t know.
In yesteryears, we gave students information in the only way we knew how. Today, however, students can get their own information through technology, faster than a teacher can convey it. The jobs of the future are going to require more innovation, because machines will handle the repetitive and tedious tasks.
Incidently, there are ways to make good incomes through repetition and duplication. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
But, if we want kids to be more innovative, the education system has to be more innovative. If we want kids to be more collaborative – employers are looking for good, team players – we have to teach them that collaboration trumps competition with those on the same team. Sure, we have to evaluate students in terms of what they’ve learned, but what if the grading system were less about beating the person next to you, and more about the student’s and the person next to him’s mutual achievement?
Technology is changing our workplaces, but it is changing our education system at a much slower pace, Downey paraphrases Huett. Huett refers to the education system as a factory model that puts students on a conveyor belt at medium speed.
The workplaces of yesteryear had few innovators. To compete globally as a nation, innovation has to be encouraged at the earliest stage of life possible. Technology can make education more productive, and, perhaps, more interesting to students.
How refreshing it would be for educators to have more students in their classroom who WANT to be there? The jobs of the future will be less repetitive, less duplicative and more innovative – no matter the level a person works in an organization. Workers will relish the mutual success with those around them. It will be work, but it will seem less like WORK. Why can’t school be work, but seem less like SCHOOL?
Peter
OLDER WORKERS STARTING BUSINESSES AT INCREASING RATE
Jody Reeves, 53, dreams of starting a neighborhood seafood shop in Atlanta.
Will she fulfill her dream?
Research shows that the number of Baby Boomers starting businesses is increasing, according to a report by David Markiewicz, a business writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His report was published Sunday, Dec. 9. 2012.
Mind you, most businesses are still being launched by 20-somethings or 30-somethings. But those in the older set, who decades ago looked forward putting their feet up, collecting a pension and relaxing, are launching businesses by increasing numbers. Markiewicz quotes figures from the Kauffman Foundation, which says the number of people 50 and older launching businesses has increased every year in each of the last 10 years.
Also, Markiewicz reports, the percentage of new entrepreneurs ages 55 to 64 has grown to 20.9 percent as of 2011, from 14.3 percent in 1996.
What’s behind this trend? There is a combination of dreams and realities at work here.
For some, starting a business has been a lifelong dream that had to be postponed for years because they needed a steady income to raise families. Back when the 50-somethings were in their 20s, starting a business was risky. Having a job was not nearly as risky. One tends to be risk-averse when security is there for the taking.
In this economy, however, there are new realities. Having a job is more risky than starting a business. Companies are outsourcing tasks to avoid hiring people. So, instead of doing a task for a company as an employee, the company can hire you as a contractor to accomplish the same thing. No guaranteed salary and benefits to pay. No sick pay. No pension contributions. No disability payments.
Some Baby Boomers have found themselves out of a job, but not ready, able or eligible to retire. They have had to start over at the back end of their careers. They are starting businesses out of necessity, and hoping they can succeed.
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN STARTING A BUSINESS
According to Markiewicz’s report, Reeves doesn’t know whether her seafood shop will ever become a reality. “ Some days, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can do this.’ Other days, I think I might just be better off to go work at Target,” Markiewicz quotes her.
There are a few considerations for anyone of any age when thinking about starting a business. First, do you have what it takes to make it through the launch phase, which could take years, before you see anything resembling a steady profit? Rule of thumb: if you need a paycheck tomorrow, this might not be for you – at least not now.
Secondly, patience and perseverance are essential. If you are the type to try something that may not work initially, then give up on it, starting a business may not be for you.
Thirdly, if you’d love to ditch your boss – if you haven’t already been ditched — but don’t know what you would do instead, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. There are lots of ways to make money without having a job. This is one of the best. If you are intrigued, you might think about getting set up BEFORE you have to, so that when you are shown the door, or when you can’t take it anymore, you can walk out with a smile because you’ve prepared for it.
Putting one’s feet up in retirement is a nice thought. But, to paraphrase poet Robert Burns and novelist John Steinbeck, the best laid plans may not come to fruition, through no fault of yours. Speaking “Of Mice and Men,” getting out of the rat race before the rats win is the best thing anyone can do.
Don’t wait until you’ve lost the race. Take a little time now to prepare so that the rats can only THINK that they’ve won. You will know something the rats don’t know.
Peter
CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND YOUR CONTROL
The Libra horoscope for Dec. 8, 2012, read: “Don’t waste time speculating about how you would perform in other circumstances. Focus instead on the circumstances you’re in now.”
That horoscope was published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Not everyone takes horoscopes seriously, of course. But this one has a resonating message.
It makes one think about the difference between wishes and dreams.
A wish is something you want, but usually can’t get. A wish is usually something that depends on circumstances to come true.
A dream is something a person can ACHIEVE, regardless of circumstances, if he really wants it.
A dream is usually something a person creates, along with the way he’s going to achieve it.
Circumstances are none of your business. You can’t control most circumstances. Circumstances result from things that happen beyond your sphere of influence. What takes place in your sphere of influence is how you react to the circumstances around you.
For the last three years, the economy has been in the pits. Lots of folks lost jobs. Some still have not gotten new ones. Others have gotten new ones, but at far less than they were earning before they lost their original job.
Jobs are circumstances. They do not belong to the job holder. There is no entitlement to work. Jobs will come and go, through no fault of the job holder. Some will never come back, either to the job holder or anyone else.
Job holders can’t wish for time to go backward. They have to deal with new realities. They have to face the fact that the job that took care of their lives and families is gone. It would be the same as if a hurricane, or other natural disaster, wiped out one’s livelihood, home or entire town. You may have known it was coming, but you never really know how bad it’s going to be until it hits YOU.
CIRCUMSTANCES ARE LIKE THE WEATHER
Most circumstances, like the weather, are beyond your control. When a boxer faces his opponent in the ring, he knows he’s going to get hit. He can do a lot of things to prevent himself from getting hurt, but he can’t prevent everything. And, he certainly can’t prevent his opponent from swinging at him.
We all face certain circumstances. We can’t wallow in the misery, and expect to come out better. We have to DO something to make things better. We have to acknowledge what has happened, but not be paralyzed by it. We must look at the bad, yet see the good – or potential good – of any circumstance.
If you face tough economic circumstances, solutions are all around you. You just have to look for them. Lost your job? There are many ways to make money WITHOUT having a job, and regardless of education or background. To check out one of the best ways, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
If you face tough circumstances, think of all that is good in your life. Let those thoughts dominate your mind. Don’t wish for things to be better. Do what you need to do to make them better. Don’t wish for circumstances to be different. You can’t control them. Establish a dream, write it down, and go about achieving it. If you focus on that, after a while, circumstances won’t matter to you. Circumstances can take away your job, home, possessions and surroundings. They cannot take away your dream.
It’s been said to focus on the things you can control. You can’t control most circumstances. You can control how you respond to them.
Peter
TEACHING GRIT
Sometimes it’s not how good you are at something. Many times people succeed just because they persevere.
Maureen Downey, the education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, spoke to journalist Paul Tough, author of “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character.” He says that that characteristics of persistence, self-control, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence may contribute more to a child’s success – no matter the background – than just learning words and numbers.
Downey goes on to describe research done on kids who graduated from the KIPP program in The Bronx, N.Y. Many of the kids in that program graduated middle school, high school and went off to college. They’d earned the highest test scores of any Bronx students and the fifth-highest scores in New York City in 2003. Downey quotes Tough, who cites KIPP co-founder David Levin.
Yet, only 21 percent of those young achievers earned a college degree. What happened? It appears, Downey quotes Tough, that the students who succeeded showed the greatest optimism, were able to recover from setbacks, didn’t let a bad grade destroy them and would seek extra help from professors. They would turn down going to a movie to spend the time studying.
Many educators have said that it’s the parents’ job to instill character in a student. Educators in the past have focused heavily on making students feel good about themselves (self-esteem), and some students have learned that just showing up deserves reward. As an aside, showing up on time is a big part of a success routine, but it should be expected.
Some parents have been overly concerned about protecting students from harm, and bailing them out when they get in trouble. We’ve seen that attitude follow them into adulthood. Do you know a 30-year-old who still leans on his parents to survive? Is that behavior natural, or was it carefully taught?
FEELING GOOD IS OK, BUT …
Tough seems to want to get kids away from the feel-good attitudes. He believes they should experience adversity, and learn to find ways out of it. They should learn gratitude, generosity and social agility. Do you know someone who won’t go to something that could benefit them, because they have a negative opinion of the people who might be there?
Do you know someone who will never turn down a chance to have a good time, even though their time could be better spent at more constructive activities? Do you know someone who won’t look at something that could really benefit them, because they are not the least bit curious?
Sometimes resiliency is more valuable to a student than self-esteem. Most resilient students already feel good about themselves, and know that success is up to them. Combine that with generosity, gratitude and the desire to help others succeed and you’ll have someone who WILL succeed as an adult.
So, it may not be just math and reading that students need to learn. They must combine what they learn with character attributes that will maximize what they’ve learned. To paraphrase Wendy Kinney, director of Power Core, a close-contact business networking organization, each business person can identify a person in his field to whose skills they aspire, but has a less successful business. At the same time, each business person can identify a person in his field who should never get referrals, but has a bigger business. How one markets himself makes the difference.
Related to that, most people can identify a person who started what should have been a great business, but didn’t have the grit to stay with it long enough to make it succeed. Perhaps, had they been taught the virtues of character in school, the result may have been different.
Do you have grit? Can you take a punch, get up and keep fighting? Are you looking for the best way to apply that grit to be the most successful? Do you want to help others succeed with you? If so, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It’s one vehicle that can help the gritty person become successful, no matter the education.
The more resilient, gritty, optimistic and generous people we have in this world, the better our world will be. Do you want to be part of the gritty solution, or be the grit that clogs the works? If you don’t see yourself as gritty, but wish you were, you can learn to change.
Peter
YOUR PENSION? A LIABILITY FOR YOUR EMPLOYER
If you have been fortunate enough to work for an employer long enough to qualify for a pension, and your boss offers you one big check when you leave, in exchange for the smaller – and everlasting — monthly checks, would you take it?
J. Scott Trubey, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has found that many big Atlanta companies are doing that. His report was published in the Oct. 14, 2012, edition.
On its face, it appears that the employers are bearing a big cost now, in lieu of mounting costs later. If the companies fund their pension plans, they won’t have to contribute nearly as much in the future by paying workers off now. If the numbers work well for the company, that’s all well and good.
But should the workers take the offer? There are several schools of thought. First, if you are ill and not expected to live a long life, you might think about taking the big payment now to cover your medical costs, presuming your employer doesn’t provide retiree insurance beyond Medicare. Of course, that would leave less for your spouse, if you are able to cover him or her in your pension. Then again, if you are a healthy, active retiree, expecting to live a long life in retirement, those monthly checks would be very nice to have for as long as you live. And, if you are fortunate to live a long and healthy life, you’d have collected so much more than that lump sum over time.
But let’s look at things a different way. Obviously, if you are not a careful money manager, or are not a savvy investor, or feel that having that much money in your pocket at once is too much temptation to spend frivolously and quickly, then the monthly pension payouts are best for you.
WHAT COULD $200,000 AT ONCE DO FOR YOU?
But if you have some financial smarts, or get good, reliable financial advice, you could invest that money with a return greater – even much greater – than your pension plan would get. To use round numbers, a $200,000 lump-sum payment in your hands could double every five years, whereas it might double every 10 years in the pension plan’s overly cautious investments. Naturally, pension plans have to be careful with their investments. But having the money in your hands give YOU power to invest it as YOU would want, with potentially more attractive returns.
Using those same numbers, if the $200,000 lump-sum investment doubled every five years, and you lived 20 years in retirement, you’d have a $3.2 million nest egg if you didn’t touch it. If that’s not practical – you need the money to live the retirement of your dreams – you can live off the returns of your money. An 8 percent annual return is not unheard of in the investment world, so you would make $18,000 a year to live on – and still have your lump sum. Compare that to your monthly benefit, multiplied by 12.There may not be much difference, or there could be a big difference in your favor.
The bonus: you would ALWAYS have that lump sum in its entirety working for you, no matter how long you lived. Just think if you took a part-time job you enjoyed. You might be able to put, say, $5 every paycheck from that job into that account to augment it. If you are money-savvy, you’d been saving all your life. It would be no big deal to keep it up.
If you already have decent savings over and above your pension and Social Security, and you add that lump sum to augment your account, how much more interest, dividends and capital gains would you make? Would your monthly pension matter?
So, if you are in a position to take a lump-sum payment in exchange for your monthly pension, give it a lot of thought. Get some good, trustworthy advice from someone other than a representative of your employer. Think about it from the perspective of control. If you like to control your own destiny, the choice you would make might be different from a person who doesn’t want the worry of financial management, or who budgets based on knowing what he gets every month.
Either choice has risks. You risk market performance with the lump sum, and you risk pension plans going belly-up with the monthly payment. Many pension plans are in trouble today and, even if you worked for a government agency or a very solvent company, that pension might not always be what you think it will be.
One more idea: what if you took the lump sum and invested a small portion of it into something that would give you a potentially substantial residual income that would dwarf your monthly pension? There are several ways to do that. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
Most of all, if you get that choice,be thankful. So many people work hard and have NO pension. If you are young, don’t PRESUME you’ll get a pension, even if your employer promises it. Lots can change over time.
Peter
CLASS OF 2013: FEAR THE DEBT REAPER
It’s early, but Kyle Wingfield, columnist with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, thinks it’s time to address graduates.
His October 2012 column suggests that graduates – mainly high school graduates – think about their options before going to college.
Wingfield suggests that they not end up like Katie Brotherton, a young Cincinnati woman who is $190,000 in debt from college and graduate school. She’s living in her parents’ basement.
Brotherton is “looking for answers.” As Wingfield points out, it started with her decision to go to college with borrowed money.
You can envision a pattern: a person goes to college, thinking she would get a good job when she got out. She doesn’t. So, she decides to go to graduate school, thinking it might broaden her qualifications and buy her time for the job market to improve. Meanwhile, she’s incurring more debt.
She gets out of graduate school with no good job and lots of debt. She moves back home. She doesn’t want to be living at home, but she has no choice. Her debt and lack of employment leave her unable to afford to live on her own. Her parents sympathize with her plight, but they, too, would rather see her out on her own.
A few decades ago, we were told to go to the best college we could possibly get into. The best schools would open more doors, we were told. The best schools, often, were usually the most expensive. But if those schools opened more doors, you’d be able to pay back your education fairly quickly with a good job.
Many of the “good” jobs that students thought would be there are not. In fact, they may have disappeared permanently.
As Wingfield points out, education inflation is rampant. There could even be an education “bubble” getting bigger by the day. We all know what happened with the housing “bubble.” It’s not that students should not get an education, it’s that some education does not provide a great return on investment, in terms of career opportunities.
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with getting a degree in history, literature or some of the other liberal arts. No education is really wasted. But students have to evaluate whether that education is worth the debt incurred, or, worth the sacrifices your family might make to provide it.
ARTS, HISTORY MAJORS: YOU HAVE OPTIONS
If you love history, the arts or psychology, you can still pursue them. But you can do so at less expensive schools close to home. You may be able to parlay those degrees into a good career, but you have to understand that most people with such backgrounds cannot convert them to real dollars.
All is not lost, however. You can get one of those degrees without using it as an income producer. There are many excellent ways to produce income outside your educational background. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
Even if you have a degree in engineering, the sciences, technology, mathematics or other fields in great demand, you might want to have a Plan B if your career plans don’t turn out the way you want them to. There are excellent income streams that can get you out of your parents’ home as an adult.
So, as Wingfield addresses the class of 2013, he suggests that they not lower ambitions, just understand the reality. Not all college degrees are the same. Most college degrees can be obtained from schools that are not cripplingly expensive. Remember that as you get older and proceed in your career, or life, where you went to school becomes less important in terms of whether you get hired. A degree is a degree. You will succeed largely on your experience.
Success comes in many forms. Being a great historian may not produce lots of income, but it may produce great successes. Just realize that you may have to find another way to make a living, or create wealth for yourself.
Educational institutions need to be aware of the “bubble.” It could burst, and they could find themselves with great, expensive programs, and no students that can afford them. Students need to be aware that there are ways to make an income regardless of education. You just have to be willing to check them out.
Peter
A DREAM RETIREMENT OR DREAMING YOU CAN RETIRE?
At age 45, some years ago, Denise McColister felt very secure in her job. She believed she would retire comfortably at 62.
Then, her husband became disabled. Their house, which was paid for, had to be leveraged to pay for his care. So now, at 55, she’s working a part-time call-center job. There is no retirement in sight.
McColister’s story was one of several told in an article by David Markiewicz, in the Sept. 23, 2012, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Over the years, retirement has evolved. Decades ago, workers longed for the day when their pensions, Social Security and retirement savings could be pooled into a comfortable life in the last years of life. They’d spent many years of hard labor and this was their reward.
They combined what their employers, their government and their own diligence did for them over the years to reach their dream. They hoped they would have enough good years of life, without sickness, disability or ordinary ravages of age, to travel, enjoy their hobbies or just relax with family and friends.
Today, the Baby Boomers look at retirement differently. If they are lucky, they have a pension, they have, or will have, Social Security and, if they were smart, a nest egg of savings and investments. But, presuming they are healthy, they can, and want to, still work at something that they can do largely on their own terms, so there is time to enjoy “retirement.”
The economy, however, has produced a number of folks like McColister who are not working at a job because they WANT to. They are working because they HAVE to. They are in this predicament through no fault of their own. The economy, or some other life catastrophe, has put them in a position in which, as Markiewicz quotes McColister, they will be working “until I am called home.”
If you are at or near retirement age, hopefully you have things in place that will allow you to enjoy some kind of “retirement,” or at least get you out of the rat race. If you are looking for something that will help in this regard, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. This vehicle could be the financial solution you are looking for, if you see yourself working until you die. Despite the ravages of a horrible economy over the last several years, there are ways out there to generate income. This is one of the best.
STILL YOUNG? START THINKING NOW!
If you are young, and not yet thinking about retirement, start now to prepare for that day. Check out a way you can work full-time at your job, and part-time on your fortune. Put a little money away each paycheck, and don’t touch it until you reach the age you want to retire.
Of course, should you be hit with a layoff or some other calamity,that may be easier said than done. Still, you must prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Bad things happen to good people. Having multiple streams of income will help cushion the blows. We must presume that promises made to us, either by employers or government, will NOT be kept. If we do what we can do to prepare for trouble, and it never comes, we are that much ahead of the game. We also have to learn not to blame ourselves, or others, if misfortune comes. If we’ve prepared for the worst, we can use our energy to deal with misfortune, rather than retaliate against whomever or whatever we believe caused it.
What should you do now? First and foremost, don’t presume anything, other than YOU having control over your adversity. Secondly, think about creating multiple streams of income. If you do that, it won’t matter much what happens to you. You’ll be able to deal with it comfortably, without the angst and stress McColister and others face.
The greatest moment of your life is being able to leave a job that has consumed you, on your terms, with a smile on your face. Then, to quote former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson in the AAG reverse mortgage ad, “live the life you’ve dreamed.”
Peter
PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE: THE LIFEGUARD STORY
A Florida lifeguard, and several of his colleagues were either fired or left their jobs with a private lifeguard company because that lifeguard opted to leave his post to save a life.
The problem here is that the drowning swimmer ventured into unprotected waters, and the lifeguard company only had liability to guard the protected areas. Therefore, the lifeguard who saved the swimmer was violating the company’s liability policy and put the company at great financial and legal risk. The city of Hallandale, Fla., is rethinking how it is providing lifeguard services.
Jay Bookman, a columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, discussed this story in a July 2012 column. He said the lifeguard made a choice: would he worry more about the company’s bottom line, or the life of a drowning swimmer? And Bookman asked: could he live with himself if he had stayed at his post and let the drowning swimmer die?
It’s not just a case of public services, vs. private profit. It’s also a case of who we are as people. The lifeguard’s colleagues who lost or left their jobs were asked point blank by the lifeguard company what they would have done in that situation. When they said they would save the swimmer, they were, essentially, dismissed.
As more public services are outsourced to the private sector – and there will be more such outsourcing in the future as government spending is reduced – we have to look at the INTENT of those who serve these companies. For most dedicated lifeguards, their intent, and their instinct, is to save lives first. That’s how they are trained. They should NEVER be penalized for doing that!
But in the liability morass, and as public institutions make beneficial, money-saving adjustments in how they perform public services, it’s difficult to fault Hallandale for finding a private company to handle its lifeguard services. South Florida has year-round activity on the water, so there is likely a very high price to protect those who use the water year-round.
The public sector has established many zero-tolerance policies that take decision-making out of a human’s hands. These policies go like this: if this happens, that’s the consequence. Period. No mitigating circumstances. No gray areas. A human checks his judgment at the door. No creative solutions allowed!
When the profit motive becomes part of “public” service, services are provided differently. Usually, private companies provide more efficient service. But sometimes, efficiency is not what’s called for. Doing something efficiently may not always equate to doing it RIGHT.
Government’s overriding concern is process and procedure, and making sure everyone is treated fairly – at least that’s the theory. Private companies’ overriding concern is maximizing profit, and minimizing expenses. Both concerns can mix well in some endeavors, but certainly not in every endeavor. That swimmer, perhaps, should not have been swimming where he was swimming. Do we let him die for a bad decision? People, particularly young people, make ill-advised decisions all the time, utilizing real resources to bail them out. Do we stop doing that, and make personal responsibility paramount?
These are fair questions as we watch the inevitable trend of outsourcing public services. Adjudication should consider who did the right thing. Adjudication should require human reasoning, instinct, intuition and, most of all, INTENT! Those who deliberately intend to do wrong without mitigating circumstances should be punished. But mitigating factors play a big part in defining right and wrong. And, people can do bad things unintentionally. In those cases, different consequences may be in order, depending on the extent of the damage, and whether or not the person should have been paying attention. The lifeguard’s attention was correctly focused on the troubled swimmer.
Think of your own life, your decisions and the consequences of those decisions. Do you feel good about what you did, regardless of what may have happened to you because of it? Did you make a small mistake, and are paying too dearly for it? The lifeguard may have lost his job, but, as Bookman points out, he probably would have been haunted for life had he not saved that swimmer.
For the sensible person, the gut reaction is usually the right one. When it’s not, the sensible person takes heed, and sees why it isn’t. The sensible person, most of the time, will do the right thing.
Peter
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