EDC 668 - Week 7 Blog

From where does personal and local change derive? How can we use change to promote deeper learning as individuals and in our local settings?

Daniel Yankelovich's article, Ferment and Change: Higher Education in 2015 was really interesting. He spoke of 5 trends that higher education should consider to meet the needs of the people by 2015.

Personal and local change must derive in five ways-- according to the article; one of which is Changing Life Cycles as our Nation's Population Ages. The article speaks of "college aged" being dramatically flopped from an "early 20's" mentality. With this, it's important that higher education see these changes and see to changing as the trends do.

A dramatic separation between the work force and college is shown to illustrate how divided we are and how this change cannot be created without the enlistment of both involved. Here's an excerpt from the article that I feel summed up the concept best:

Employers and colleges are not designed to accommodate the longer life stage between adolescence and settling down, especially in light of the ever-changing character of today's knowledge economy. Preparation for work is now divided between "education," the task assigned to schools and colleges, and "training," the task assigned to the workplace or to professional trainers. Yet that distinction is often artificial and inefficient. A great deal of training goes on in education, but it is poorly done because it is divorced from the workplace, and a great deal of education goes into training that is also poorly done because it is divorced from colleges. If higher education were totally responsive to the demands of the larger society, in 10 years we would see many more efforts to integrate higher education, training, and work.

To derive that personal change, the mindset of individuals needs to change. Individuals need to focus themselves and cause that special change at the local level. The whole quote about "it takes a village to raise a child" may be appropriate here. In order for local change to occur, everyone must take on the responsibility to do their part and show less ignorance to change. The support, financially, through voting, and emotionally must stand behind the future of higher education.

Some ways I can show personal change to affect local change is to encourage my fellow colleagues to continue on with higher education, to vote in elections (even though their children don't go to schools in the district or they are past their prime and children are grown and moved away), and to see purpose in getting involved. Many people think that their "vote" or input does not count but collectively they all do. With everyone keeping that mentality of "I'm only one person...", we would have no involvement. If more people spoke up about their interests to further their education and the ways in which they saw fit, change would occur. It takes a united people to campaign for their interests.

Higher education will not change overnight and the plans to change by 2015 (you think we'll get there?? I'm not so sure! We only have 7 years!) will be impossible if the ENTIRE community of people sees higher education as their concern.