CLIP!! I hope no one objects to strenuously to my resurrecting this thread for one more thought. Sometimes I have to think things through quite a bit before I get the viewpoint settled and feel like it is worth expressing. Formal training is a somewhat new phenomenon in human development. For years we had apprenticeships where one worked with a master for years or decades before striking out on ones own. During that time, there may have been some formal instruction, but most of the instruction was by example, where real work was performed under tutelage and the result was a usable (in most cases) piece of work, as well as the apprentice gaining knowledge and more importantly skills needed to produce works. Formal training on the other hand generally stresses reading or mental exercise with the skill development almost and after thought. This works reasonably well, but the formal training without hands on seldom produces useful ability. So most professional programs have some form of internship where one picks up the skills both motor and emotional to proceed to apply knowledge in a meaningful fashion. Meaningful education then can be said to have two forms, one is the manuals and mental preparation, and the other is the executional skills. However there are two more that are often overlooked in both apprenticeship and formal education, planning is required in all serious endeavors and yet is one of the unmentioned skills, strategizing is the other, because examining what is happening and planning for contingencies requires that strategy be employed. Planning is paramount. And while it really determines ones ability to execute, it is seldom taught hand in hand with either or both of the other two. Yet, when one is apprenticed to a true master, part of the educational process is the absorption of the planning that the master does, although in my experience it is never directly mentioned. However if one learns in an adhoc manner, the development of planning takes place as one realizes the gaps in their knowledge. One might question how the process starts, and arrive at planning from that view point, or one might look for knowledge in some sequential manner, learning in the process that current knowledge builds upon prior success, so planning consists of selecting successful prior experience and building on it. Strategizing, however, to be effective must be taught. We can develop strategy from experience, but the failures can be terrible and unforgiving, so a failure that could be learned from is seldom documented, and never mentioned to upcoming apprentices. However those failures are part of the development of a good strategy. Teaching effective strategy requires teaching others not only the means to succeed, but also those things to avoid. Generally parents give us some insight into strategy by showing us things to avoid. Don't and no are parents primary tools to keep us out of trouble, avoiding unsuccessful endeavors and affecting our strategies for survival. We pick up the means to avoid the errors our parents know about, and in some cases, learn that our parents were right, so re-enforcing the earlier lessons that they passed on to us. But when have you ever seen a lesson on strategy for successful living or successful management? Typically only after a company or yourself have made some catastrophic blunder (financial crises anyone?) What I am trying to get at by this meandering is that our formal and informal methods teach us more than we thought, and in some cases, the things we learn are not what the teachers intended. Sort of the trainers book of unintended consequences. So teachers with little exposure to the real world can seldom provide us with strategies for the real world. Conversely masters with skills in the real world seldom provide us with glimpses of their own failures. The sum of these two pieces means that there is a large body of knowledge to which we have no direct access. Moreover history seldom records the true sequence of events that leads to disaster, only that disaster happens and then finds someone to scapegoat, while the most valuable piece of knowledge, that of why is left to die on the vine, opening the door for a repeat. Today with massive on line documentation, that is fast becoming archaic. Accuracy of planning and strategizing is evolving at a rate driven by Moores Law. However human nature being what it is, the acquired knowledge won't make it into most hands for many decades, I think. Engineers are leading the charge. The evolution of statistical analysis of engineering failures permits engineers to look to the future of their designs and head off catastrophic failures as never before. Unfortunately not everyone follows the data and/or believes it yet. Others cherry pick the data they want to use, often ignoring "outliers" which is where real knowledge lies. If you want to know why airplanes fail, examine the outliers, both those that never fail and those that fail more often or more catastrophically. Once this makes it into mainstream, many things will change for the better if people stick to analyzing all aspects of all the raw data. This is why it is impossible to say that formal training is better than adhoc knowledge, and is the prime reason that both formal training and informal training are necessary and valuable to all professions. In other words we are all have something to share. Just my opinion. Les H -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
