THE CHALLENGE OF EDUCATING THE EDUCATED

It is often said that it is difficult to awaken a person who is pretending to sleep. So is the process of educating the educated.

The “I know” syndrome with many of the educated persons is oftentimes the greatest inhibitor to their further learning and is a reflection of their inflexible attitude grounded on a comparitive ego. Therefore the challenge of training or educating this class of people indeed warrants special understanding, strategies and diplomacy. It should possibly start with a positive energy building exercise which would indirectly lead them to realize their existing inadequacy and the urgency to scale up their strengths and competencies.

In certain other cases “the Learned Helplessness” of these individuals bestows them with self-pity, low self-esteem and fear of the unknown, thereby blocking the roadways to further learning and growth. It is indeed a challenge to restore them from this psychological imprisonment and make them realize of the unlimited possibilities for their growth and development.

The fear of unlearning and relearning also acts as a retarding force for coping with change. Oftentimes, they blame their environment and the newer dimensions of thinking patterns as “commercial aggression” to make fast bucks in a trade, business or industry and as a calculated sport to prepare in award of pink slips to the chosen few whom they wanted to part with.

HR policymakers and managers need to understand that the concepts of neuro-plasticity explains the competence of a human brain for continuous and extended learning. Age, experience and previous knowledge are no barriers for further learning. What appears to be important is the attitude to change and acceptance of change. Sometimes when some experienced people make a statement that ït is difficult to forget what they had learnt and practiced over a period of time.” they fail to understand forgeting has nothing to do with unlearning. The paradigms are different.

HR departments need to focus on the recent interventions of neuro-plasticity of the brain and help the educated to educate with curiosity, comfort and conviction. Concepts of Neuro-marketing, NLP in sales and administration, newer constructs of problem solving through collaboration and participation, engaging team building scaffolding social intelligence which would nurture healthy participation of the stakeholders in developing a shared vision, re-positioned entrepreneurial attitudes in work culture and delivry models are some of the current designs which need to be addressed.

Education at the higher levels of working and functions, should not be deemed as mere knowledge acquisition and enhanced skilling in work systems, but as engaging discoveries in synthesis of new knowledge and skills in the existing functional parameters of the organizations in which they work.  Celebrations of new knowledge drivers and skill architects in an organization can act as a catalyst for preparing a right climate in this direction.

Educating the educated calls for an intense planning as the first barrier for the same would be the unwillingness to be a part of a learning community as most of them have always decorated leadership or decision making positions and thus to be treated at par with a learning force. Pseudo-intellectualism is more dangerous than ignorance in a developing organization which is part of the knowledge economy.