Separation of Powers in Education: A pillar of the Rule of Law is the separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. In the same way, I believe that such a separation would benefit education. Let us have one body that defines the desired learning outcomes, another body responsible for assessing performance against those outcomes and a separate domain for those who prepare the learners for the assessments offered. This would necessitate clear and specific definitions of the desired learning outcomes that would – I believe – be facilitated through cognitive competencies.

Cognitive Competencies: What is an MBA worth? What about a law degree? Heck, what does it mean to get an “A” for maths? Much education is focused on measurements devoted to delivering a matriculation score – a measure that has enough superficial validity to permit discrimination between students. Yet they usually don’t mean very much.

Learning outcomes are so ill-defined that we resort to relying upon the tacit knowledge of our educators to transform them into something useful. Fortunately, this has worked adequately. However, with increasing competition, it is about time that we replaced this centuries-old process with a measurement of the mental operations that we want to see developed. Firstly for the sake of the students: Let them focus their energies upon correcting their mistakes rather than spending endless hours not really knowing what they need to work on. But also for our society, so that we can fast-track prodigous learners towards more suitable challenges and more effectively direct the energies of our teachers and our students.

Selective Reinforcement of Spontaneous Behaviour: My concept of ‘genius’ is that individuals exhibit a large range of behaviours, some of which are reinforced; reinforcement leads to the development of clusters of skills that tend to work together to create talents and, especially when developed early, the development of an identity that works to offer a sustainable advantage.

For example, I learnt to perform split-attention tasks and to work quickly when I was doing my homework on my lap inside my tidybox in primary school (since if I did ‘homework’ at school, I didn’t have to do it at home!) – a spontaneous behaviour – and kept doing it because the first few times I received the reward (free time) without punishment (being told not to do it – as I was later, though largely ignored having experienced the reward!). Very small shifts yield massive long-term changes…

I am considering writing further on these, though have been thinking or writing about them since at least 2003. Let me know if you’re interested… I like encouragement

Daniel Smith

Speaking to a group in a way that is impactful, interesting or informative may take skill…
It may take practice…
Doing it well might even take some talent.
… but it’s just not that difficult!!!

Communication skills aren’t just a “Status Skill“: They’re a life skill. This is one of those things upon which the very quality of your life depends… it’s not like being able to roll a sushi or sail a yacht or play the grand piano in the foyer of a fancy hotel – although all those are cool – but rather one of the most pervasive and impactful domains of skill development that exist.

The very quality of your life comes down to the quality of your communication skills… with others, but also with yourself.

When I was a kid, I was skinny and weak. Now, I could have transcended my personal insecurities and come to accept myself exactly as I was (and all that) – or I could just learn how to fight. So I got a black belt in the form of karate that wikipedia refers to as “simplified street fighting” or something (and yes, I still wear the gold Bushido Cross that I was awarded).

When I started a company, I didn’t think I knew what I was doing. And I was right. Now, I could have struggled and fought my self-doubts and denied or faced my fears until I finally proved to the world that I did know what I was doing. Or I could just get an MBA.

You can deny or ignore the cause of your insecurities and fears if you like… but sooner or later I find that I have to either get the sheet of paper that will tell me that now I “can”, or I need to do the thing that proves that I “can”.

It’s no better than transcending your fears… it’s just another option
Oh… and I love Shanghai’s snow…

Daniel Smith

After all, it’s the learning that we need, not the sheet of paper!

As I thought about the ‘key learnings’ concept more generally, I heard yesterday that a Creation Science Museum had been established in the USA. While I have great respect for religious beliefs, I really have a hard time accepting that blindly accepting an arbitrary and unnecessarily complex explanation for the world is really ‘holy’.  It was reassuring to come across The Canon, a book that expresses basic science that we should all know. (Dworkin might go too far for my liking, I think he’s misled rather than deluded.)

If we’re going to compete in the real world, we need to know something about it!

There’s a lot of information that intelligent and informed members of the modern world need. Our schools are trying to disseminate some of that information, but with the acceleration in knowledge creation, we need to keep learning… fast! I guess it’s another reason to visit The Genius Project’s Zone.

Daniel Smith

But as I was preparing for my last karate grading, one of my great instructors asked me whether I was chasing the rank or whether the rank was chasing me. The word “dan” in Japanese refers to the degree of black belt, so “shodan” is a first degree, “nidan” is second degree and so on. This of course meant that he was able to ask me: “Is the dan chasing Dan, or is Dan chasing the dan?”

Being conditioned to be ‘an achiever’ from a very young age, this was very confronting – I knew nothing other than to chase “the dan”. Yet over time, it dawned on me that having a sheet of paper without having the competence that the sheet of paper represents is meaningless, while being competent makes the sheet of paper a largely redundant formality.  Certificates can make great wallpaper.

Collect competence, not just certificates.

Daniel Smith.