Recently I completed the MOOC "Moralities of Everyday Life" via Coursera . The lectures and discussion focused on things like human disgust (why do some people feel disgusted at the mention of gay individuals and others do not?) and the impact setting, time, and space on moral decisions. I reflected on a number of things I've held as fundamental moral truths and questioned the origin of the variety of morals I both consciously and unconsciously use as criteria for my daily decisions. One of the lectures was about a concept called circles of morality, a topic more fully explored in a book called The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress. From what I understand this has much to do with how we treat our circles differently. For instance, you would probably give your own son or daughter a hand up in life more quickly than someone outside of your family. And you will probably defend a cause for someone from your own community than from outside it. As our circles get larger, the questions of morality get more complex (think: intervening in Syria vs focusing more on our own national crisis of poverty). So what does this have to do with parents and teachers? In his book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, Paul Tough shares a plethora of research about the impact of stress and anxiety of the early lives of children on how they performa and function in years later and how it is more detrimental to learning than many Americans realize. After reading the book, working in a Title 1 school for a few months, and now doing media production for a community college it seems to me that our conversation about education is really lacking in a discussion about American parenting. When you look at it, parents are the first circle of morality around their child, thus the most impact. Then comes neighborhood or community, followed by school and finally government. We are spending much of our debate and energy on the THIRD and FOURTH circle of morality for these kids!
Don't get me wrong. I am not pointing at parents as the group that deserves any bit larger portion of blame than other groups. Perhaps the largest issue is poverty. The disparities are enormous. My wife and I read books and thoughtfully ponder ways to help our new baby from what sort of food to give him at certain ages, to what activities and songs we should use to best help him develop and connect with us. On the other hand I've met folks who don't have the time, knowledge, or preparation to do these kinds of things - and their child then suffers the consequences and will inevitably repeat the same treatment of their offspring in the years to come. Other parents have the resources and ability to nourish their child properly, but allow nannies and hired help to do the actual parenting. Besides biology, the fact remains that there are no credentials required to have a child. So when we get a generation raised on Sponge Bob and McDonalds, of course we are going to have some issues. It isn't that parents don't care about their kids, but the cycle of poverty forces many to spend ALL their time and effort to just produce food on the table. Reading books, doing special attachment activities with babies, and other proven activities for healthy child development is just out of the question if you don't have the energy or the basic skill set to deliver these things. My question then, is why aren't we having more discussion about helping parents be great parents? If parents already come with a strong desire to do the right thing for their kids - and they do in many ways including biologically, morally, and psychologically, than why not leverage the proximity of this moral circle? Like him or not, Geoffrey Canada is at least partly on to something by working closely with parents to become better at raising kids and forming attachment with them.
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Everything is awesome, or as Douglas Rushkoff wrote "Everything is everything". In our hyper-connected world you can basically draw similarities and principles from anything to everything and back again. This fact of the digital age is not lost in the recent hit The Lego Movie. Some have called The Lego Movie an anti-business attack while others have hailed it has a highly entertaining 100 minute commercial. Regardless of your political ideology or feelings of the Lego brand, refuting the innovative script and enjoyable execution of this "kid movie" would be challenging. Trent Williams, a PhD Candidate at the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington (and one of my two role model brothers!), dug deeper than entertainment value and simple enjoyment when evaluating this film. I exchanged some thoughts with him this past week after my wife and I were able to finally go see the film. Greg: I understand you went and saw The Lego Movie with your family a while back. What were your initial thoughts and reactions to the film in relation to entrepreneurship and business in general? Trent: My initial thought was "Wow! This is Entrepreneurship all over the place!!" What caught my attention in particular was the notion that individuals are capable of novel ideas and don't need a predetermined solution in order to get started. In entrepreneurship, and especially in concepts associated with design thinking, individuals are encouraged to "think by doing," gaining important experience by simply building prototypes. This process of building something quickly (even though it is imperfect) can tell you a lot about an idea, much more than if you just imagine it. Greg: Yes, the concept of rapid and agile development was striking. It seems that when the pressure is on and we have to try new things than our thought process is quite different than when in other situations. Trent: In the Lego movie, nobody (in the Lego community) was imagining anything let alone building things. That is, except for the "master builders" who were able to build anything with whatever was around them. I saw those master builders as "serial entrepreneurs", capable of building new creations at every turn. Serial entrepreneurs are able to see valuable combinations of resources that others don't. They might even view waste or scrapped resources as possible inputs to a process or product. It was neat to see this play out on the screen, as people rapidly thought about what was on hand and created items of value as a result. Very cool. Greg: Yes, the opening scene with Emmit starting his day surrounded by unimaginative characters was both hilarious and a little frightening because it isn't hard to see how come cultures and pressures foster such a lifestyle. Trent: Also, the mere notion of belief is critical. The protagonist in the film doesn't believe he's capable of building anything ... as a result, he's not! The first step is believing, then making lots and lots of mistakes in a quick and affordable way so you can learn. As the movie progresses, he has a lot of these types of interactions that get him to believe he can create something of value. As I talk with me students, they often fail to see their unique value they might have, and I think that all starts with a lack of belief (in themselves and that there's something interesting out there for them to do). But if we can think about what we can do, and then if we can interact with people who have a different life experience, there's a good chance we'll find combinations that are quite interesting and useful. Greg: I liked the unique way the film showed in a literal sense the Pygmalion Effect - or how when we believe something about ourselves we can really change our behavior to match those beliefs. Each character had to realize they were "special" and just seeing this truth altered their identity which in turn changed their actions. What other connections did you see in the movie to principles you are researching or teaching? Trent: I thought the whole movie really told a great story about organizational renewal. Gluing parts of organizations might feel stable, but then there's no renewal, growth, and development. Many people are nervous about change (hence the reason change management consultancies are such a huge industry) but organizational renewal and change is necessary in order to move industries, communities, and society forward. By considering new technologies or entrepreneurial ideas, people's way of life can be improved. If we're rigid in holding onto a technology or organizational system just because that's how it always was, then renewal cannot take place. Greg: I also appreciated the twist of having the story be about a father and son relationship, and the tension between conformity and organized chaos. The powerful creativity of the son wouldn't be possible with the worlds and characters provided by the father, but the stories and experience would be bland and meaningless in the father's world without the creativity and rule-breaking of the son's narrative. Does any of this have anything to do with your research concerning entrepreneurial responses to natural disasters? Trent: While that wasn't the primary thing that triggered my thinking, I do think there's a connection. For example, in my current research project I'm finding that for those who do something, that is they act in creating a venture to help others, they end up helping themselves as well (that's a very simplified version). I think it was the same in the Lego Movie where at first, everyone was helpless. But when they started acting, it helped them both physically and mentally. This goes back to the most basic principle of service (in my opinion). But service isn't always easy, straightforward, etc. (i.e., rake someone's leaves), and can often require us to leave our comfort zones entirely and try something all together new (both for us and potentially for the world). Trent is a PhD Candidate studying entrepreneurship and strategic management at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington. His focus is on entrepreneurial emergence under conditions of resource constraint, entrepreneurial resilience and decision making, corporate entrepreneurship (address challenges of ambidexterity) and entrepreneurial opportunity discovery. Trent's research includes field research exploring organizational emergence conducted in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, R&D product extension / termination decisions in a large multi-national based in Europe, and archival data based studies exploring entrepreneurship under resource constraint (US and Australia). |
AuthorI am a graduate student in Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University. I enjoy writing, hiking, and spending time with my family. Archives
June 2015
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