When I began my Master's degree program, I was inspired to encourage critical thinking and self-education...  Then reality kicked in...

It is my experience that many business leaders do not want their staff members making independent decisions; then become frustrated when the staff is afraid to make a decision.  I observed many situations like this in my daily work as well as stories related by others.  Independent thought and critical thinking, to find answers (or even to cry out the emperor has no clothes), is a great asset to an organization; many seem to feel that this causes mistakes the company cannot afford.  So, what do manager's do?  They instill fear and highly restrictive procedures that thwart creative thought and eventually... fear of ever making a decision.  

The Milgram Obedience Experiment, and the Stanford Prison experiment, teach us that the person to stand up and state this is 'wrong' is the exception...not the rule.  The culture of an organization can breed either free thinking and discourse, or fear of reprisal.  

In one experience, related to me, a manager stated that he didn't want his staff to "touch anything they shouldn't" and broke down the training into a manual a first grader would use.  I am all for providing learners with information to help them be successful; but, when we break down the task to the nth degree we breed out their ability to reason and find answers themselves.  They then become paralyzed and would rather ask and have someone else take responsibility for the decision.  This slows progress and, in some situations, it could cost much more than just a few dollars off the bottom line.

Along with this corporate resistance to staff members making independent decisions, is the mentality that "training will fix it."  If a corporation's staff is told what to do, and how to do, each piece of their job, they are going to have to understand that training will NOT always fix the problem.  

Let's take a new application just downloaded from the app store, of your choice.  Do you receive "training" on how to use your banking app?  No, and this is about managing your money!  Do you receive training on how to play Words with Friends? No.  Sure, many of these applications do have links to rules or commonly asked questions, but they also assume that if you want to use these apps you will "figure it out."  This is applied critical thinking.  I have touted the brilliance of Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken" time and time again.  She speaks to how gaming creates critical thinking and if we embrace that paradigm shift and help staff members become empowered and able to understand the reasons behind the policies and procedures we follow each day. 

Sure it is a leap to trust employees.  However, the lack of trust, of employees, breeds contempt and fear.  Those who feel valued and trusted will return the positive feelings through hard, and diligent, work.

After starting back to college in 2008 for a second Bachelors degree in Photography, in just a few more weeks I complete my Master's degree in Adult Education and Training.  This was a long and meandering path to this degree but learned some really important lessons along the way.  If you know me, I wouldn't have it any other way!  :)

Lesson 1
Go back to school only when you can pay for it out of savings, pocket or through investments.  When I finish my degree I will have nearly $70,000 in student loans and interest to repay.  At nearly 43 years old, if I can afford the equivalent of a really nice car payment for the next 10 years, I will have only 10 more years to really sock money away for a legitimate retirement.  

Lesson 2
Find a way to 'try before you buy.'  I spent a year in the second bachelors degree program for photography, then another year in the Master's degree program, thinking that the programs would help me learn the skills I needed to make my artistic image, in my view finder, come out as an equally interesting image for others to enjoy.  However, what I learned was about being an artist and how to critique others.  My lighting course was the one course I was sure would teach me about the mechanics of my photographs.  After two years and $40,000 in student loans, I realized that I was never going to be a commercial photographer in order to pay that money back.  

So, I began hunting for a new program.  I found the University of the Rockies and their Organizational Leadership program.  I was very excited by the program because it was touted as the "soft skills MBA."  That sounded very interesting to me, I liked that the school had previously focused only on clinical psychology but had begun offering an Organizational Leadership program.  What I didn't know was the program was piggy-backing off of the current clinical psychology courses.  While there are similar concepts to learn, the application is very different.  I realized during my first semester, and after another $5,000 in tuition and costs, that this was not the right choice either.  So, now I am pushing $50,000 in debt and no degree.  

One of my professors at the University of the Rockies noted on one of my assignments that I was a "natural teacher."  This sparked my thoughts toward an education Master's degree.  There I found the University of Phoenix program for Adult Education and Training.  This sounded, on paper, to be the very best choice for me.  I was already a trainer teaching adults.  Still, the program, while interesting and informative, was not a "home run" for me.  This program was much more like a law school degree.  We spend two years learning theory, and practice waits for after completion.  

I can say I did learn many things during this last 18 months and I worked very hard to apply the theories within my current position.  However, I felt that there were a lot of K-12 educators who could not relate to the differences of adult learners in a corporate environment.  Understanding that adults, coming to training, come from a range of backgrounds and attitudes toward education, is vital to offering a positive experience for adult trainees.  

Don't get me wrong, I am proud of my accomplishment, but I really wish I could have tried some of these before spending the equivalent of a house on three different programs.

Lesson 3
Spend time getting to know your strengths.  I always knew I was comfortable as a teacher/trainer; but, I was not the strongest student in high school and being a dyslexic (and dysgraphic) and my only real understanding of education was traditional K-12 or finishing my PHD to teach in academia.  I also did not relish the idea of being a teacher in a traditional classroom.  A friend of mine suggested I was an "alpha gamer" even though I am not a "gamer."  What he meant was when I get excited about any topic I share it with anyone who will listen, and that excitement can be infectious.  I love technology and I love all the new innovations coming out every year.  I admit it, I am a bit of a tech geek.  What does this all mean about knowing your strengths?  I am a non-traditional educator motivated and inspired by the new innovations of this age.  Knowing that now, I would have gone into Instructional Design and development as opposed to straight adult education and training.  That would have tied more of my strengths and desires.  But!  I am not going into further debt to go back for that.  So, I will take my education and work on innovating from there.


I am sure there are many more lessons I learned throughout this process, but those are my top three and I am caught wondering what will I do when I am done?  I won't know what to do with myself.  What else do I want to learn?  I always used to say I was a "Jane of all trades, master of none."  Now, I can say, I am a "Jane of all Trades, Master of One!"

Please do not read my rantings about cost deter you from reaching for your goals.  Just think clearly about the long term costs of taking on student loans when you are older.  

Throughout my daily life, this week, I experienced many people complaining that someone else is responsible for their lack of understanding or missed opportunites.  The software manufacturer, the hardware manufacturer, the school administration, ... the list goes on and on.  

Here is my feedback:
We are all personally responsible for assimilating the information provided to us in life.  If we don't have answers there are millions of resources to tap before pointing fingers.

Try Google!!!  
Searching the Web is much better than it was even five years ago.  If I don't know the meaning of something, or I just don't understand a concept, I don't expect my professors to spoon knowledge into my head.  I have to read the materials, do research and find my answers.  Thank you University of Phoenix!  I don't often say that because there are many more topics I wish my program detailed to make me better prepared for the technical world of adult learning.  So, do I wallow in my own self-pity that this program doesn't meet my needs or do I find another way to get the information?  The latter makes the most sense.  This program was much like Law school.  Here is how to think about education; here are some theories that the current thinking on education espouses; here are some models for planning education; now, go apply that knowledge.  

That means I have to probably shell out more money and take more classes if I can't find a video or other resource to teach me what I need to know.  I am looking forward to learning more with my newly acquired Master's degree this summer.  

Is there an App?  
I have always had a "brown thumb" when it came to gardening.  I either over watered or neglected the plants until they were beyond saving.  I decided I wanted to try container/vertical gardening this year and had no idea where to start.  So, I found a class at the local nursery and while the teacher gave me some good ideas on what to plant and where she didn't teach me HOW to build or tend my garden.  What did I do?  I looked up in my App store and found a garden minder app that sends me emails as to when to plant seeds for germination, when to take them outside and what some of the other pesky weeds in my garden might be.  

Did I blame the teacher at the nursery for my garden's success or failure?  NO!!!  This woman was nice enough to impart some wisdom with her successes and failures and help spark my interest in gardening.

Use your resources!
If I don't know how to do something in a new software package or App I poke around and see what I can figure out on my own.  If that doesn't work, I ASK!

I am completely self-taught on SQL queries within Microsoft SQL Server.  How did I do that?  I saw someone writing queries and said, "that's cool! how did you do it?"  I found YouTube videos on the basics of SQL queries and the logic of databases.  This was new to me when I started working for my company eleven years ago; now, I am considered someone who can get useful information out of the database.  I never read a book (have you seen technical manuals?!?), never took a class, and I learned how to query databases using SQL. I still stumble today and luckily I have resources who, as long as I at least tried to build it myself, are more than willing to check my work and point me in the direction of where I went wrong.

Does the software website have resources?
I am pretty proficient using Adobe Photoshop and Bridge but there are things that aren't super intuitive.  Like, finding the darn Drop Shadow!  Do I call Adobe (long distance) and complain to the support tech that their software is poorly designed?  No.  I go the the support portion of their Website and see what I might find.  Low and behold! there is Adobe TV!  There I can find all sorts of training videos on topics I want to know. 

None of my rantings today mean you should "shut up and deal," or avoid reporting a glitch or bug to a software or hardware manufacturer.  What it means is spend a little time trying to figure things out, use your resources and try and try and try before complaining you don't know how to do something.  The answers are there for you, they just need to be found.

No one is perfect and I am guilty of every item I just ranted about here.  But, I have learned from my mistakes and I try to apply that new knowledge into my own life and personal expectations.  Hopefully you will too.

....Stepping off my soapbox....