Skills Development- It’s never too late

The Southside People (21/2/07) reports on the lovely story of Charlie Walker. He’s in his 80’s left school at 13, had a hard working life. Last Autumn Charlie returned to school and completed a FETAC level 3 award moving onto a Level 4 award in Information Technology.
Using his newly developed skills he bought a lap top and made contact with a long lost sister in America. He was able to talk and see her and his grand nephew on his PC via his web cam.
All we seem to hear in the media are stories about older people getting mugged and ill. We don’t hear about the many active older people taking control and living life to the full.

So it’s never too late to start learning again. All the research shows that people who continuously try to learn enjoy better health and quality of life in many ways.

So why not decide to do some learning. It does n’t have to mean going back to a class room. You could visit your local library on a regular basis. In the better libraries there’s always something going on. Or you and a friend could agree to read a book and discuss it over a coffee.

In this respect the brain is like a muscle. If you don’t exercise it you lose strength. So why not try taking 30 minutes a week to exercise your brain doing some thing you enjoy?

skills development
older people
continuous learning

Teachers can’t learn easily

The Irish Independent reported on Tuesday a report has found that up to 500 of 1,400 student teachers have “significant weaknesses in their teaching skills”. Hopefully at this stage those 500 teachers received feedback about their weaknesses so they are now able to take action, resolve these weaknesses and reach their full potential. After all in a constructive learning environment is n’t that supposed to happen?

However I am doubtful whether teachers in general are supported in their skills development. Up till recently most training was provided by the unions not their employers. Teachers can find it very difficult to access training.
The “in service” training days so beloved of working parents focus on the new syllabus not on teachers' personal development. Once a teacher qualifies they need never do any further professional training unless the syllabus changes! Yet our understanding of how people learn and develop is improving all the time. The classroom of twenty years ago is very different to to-day’s classroom.

Imagine you’re a receptionist in a busy firm. You feel you need some additional training, but you have to keep on applying year after year for the training until you get it. Then when you finally get accepted onto your much needed course you’re told, well reception will have to close down while you’re away.
Most people in the business world would say this is just sheer madness. Yet this is exactly what happens in the teaching world.

It gets worse. Teachers are appointed into leadership positions with very limited training. A primary school principal has to lead by consensus –He/she’s a teacher with an additional allowance for being Principal. Consensus is fine until you can’t achieve it then some body got’s to take a decision. Very difficult for Principals under existing rules.

But of course they get loads of support from their Board’s of Management. (All volunteers) Well may be some of them do but again there is no comprehensive training programmes for Boards of Management. This is why we’re beginning so see so many awards against Boards of Management from student expulsions, to traveller and teacher discrimination. It’s why the under performers (present in every profession) are not managed effectively.

How can we have a positive continuous learning environment when the people responsible for delivering this get so little support?
With the existing environment the headline should read it’s amazing how much our teachers achieve rather then they’re not up to the mark.


Keywords
teachers learning
continuous learning
skills development

When hard work is not enough-the Neary case

You may be familiar with the Judge Harding Clarke report where it was found an obstetrician (Neary) had been unnecessarily removing women’s wombs for many years. Some of these women were in their twenties and the unnecessary operation meant they and their partners would never have children.
Nine of Neary’s cases were reviewed by eminent Irish colleagues and they reported it was ok for him to continue practising. Intelligently the Health Board also decided to refer the same nine cases to an English consultant who raised the alarm bells. Neary was subsequently suspended. The case raises many disturbing issues but I’ll only deal with some here.

Neary is reported as being a hard working caring consultant. He thought he was doing the right thing and was saving women’s lives by his actions. He obviously was unaware of what “best practise” is when it came to excessive bleeding in cesarean sections.

For many years in order to maintain my qualified accountant status I do up to 40 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) every year. This has n’t been the case up to now with the medical world. It’s the same for teachers. Yet surely doctors and teachers have the most impact on people’s lives? (Ok so the accountants can run off with your money as Gay Byrne found but doctors’ decisions can make the difference between life and death)

The Irish consultants agreed with Neary that he would always seek a second opinion before further such operations, so they obviously had some concerns. This agreement was not included in their reports partly because they believed they were in the middle of an industrial dispute between Neary and the Health board and they did n’t want to undermine him.
They simply reviewed his case notes and did n’t look at histology reports and nursing notes. Some of these consultants were working 80 hours a week and they were doing this report as a favour to the Irish Hospital Consultant’s Association. Were they too exhausted to consider the unthinkable?
One consultant reported
“Mothers…..fortunate in having such an experienced and caring obstetrician”.
These consultants’ reputation has been totally undermined and the Patient Focus group has stated they should no longer be allowed to teach students.

So what are the lessons from this very sad situation where there are no winners?

Always take time out to develop your knowledge on an ongoing basis. Make sure you know what “best practice” is for your role and that you’re open to continuous learning and improvement

Be aware of your own weaknesses and blind spots – there’s reports that Neary would move too quickly to surgery when bleeding started

Be aware that you don’t always know best and be prepared to discuss issues with relevant people

Be prepared to challenge practices you think are unsafe. (Difficult I know in Ireland and I’ll come back to this)

And if you’re ever asked to investigate a sensitive problem area

Approach the situation with a very open mind prepared to listen to all angles.

Don’t let friendship or compassion get in the way of establishing the true situation. However respect for the people you come into contact with is vital as they’ll be more likely to work with you.

Be very analytical. Try to obtain as many facts as possible from as wide a source as possible- be it, patient problems, customer complaints, stock missing, comparisons to other similar areas. You need hard information to get to the root cause of the problem

Always keep the end customer/client/patient in mind

If you don’t have enough time or resources to complete a full investigation make sure you document the limitations of your investigation.

Hopefully none of you reading this will ever be in such a difficult situation.

Postscript 23/02/07

One of the consultants (Dr John Murphy) involved has now resigned as President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland following a recent Medical Council finding of professional misconduct. He stated he did not want to compromise the reputation of the College.

A new licencing scheme for GP's where they will be re validated every 5 years has been announced in Britain. This follows the case of the serial Killer GP Dr Harold Shipman. I wonder whether such a scheme will ever be brought in here ?

Neary
continuous learning
career advice
Hard work

Career Skills - Samantha Mumba

I saw Samantha Mumba's interview with Pat Kenny on the Late Late Show. It was interesting to watch her show many of the skills she's used to be successful

She appeared to accept she may fail in relaunching her career, but she's always known fame and celebrity are fleeting

She acknowledged she was nervous about the Dublin concerts, as she'd gone against the advice of her management team.

She put a good gloss on the fact that concert tickets were not selling as well as she wanted

Now may be all of this was good marketing but she came across as very human and down to earth. She showed skills we all need in our careers, - the ability to accept failure, not being afraid of other people’s opinions, acknowledging we're scared, and being positive. These skills lead us to a happier life.

The only question I would ask is whether she has a strong enough single career focus. She's attempted to do so much in very tough areas, drama schools, modelling, acting and music. Often people are more successful when they focus on one career at a time.
The best of luck to her with her new album


Update 5th of March
Samantha's Vicar st concert has been cancelled as only 180 tickets were sold. It's being put down to poor marketing. She is however taking part in another event with other acts so you can still see her. She's to be admired for her resilience- a topic I'll come back to.

Keywords
career advice
career skills
career direction
fear of failure

CAO is digging a hole

I felt sorry for Joseph O Grady of the CAO on Morning Ireland last week. He was there because students have had huge problems trying to finalise their online CAO applications before the CAO deadline.
There's only about nine of them and they do provide one of the few public services in this country where "who you know" or how many phone calls you make, does not dictate how fast or if ever you get a service. They're actually pretty efficient and they allow students total freedom when choosing a course. For example in the UK you have to be very careful about how many colleges you put on your application form as all colleges see what you've put down. Makes the interview very difficult

"Mmmn so you say you really want to come here, but we're only your 19th choice".

However when your customers can't avail of your service when they expect to, don't come out fighting, quoting legal restrictions etc and blame the customers for leaving it till the last minute.

Best thing is to apologise for example
Yes we did look at our IT problems , we thought we had solved them, but we do have limited funds and this did not help.
We did warn every body to apply early but obviously this message did not get through and we'll have to look at this.

We're really sorry for the inconvenience it's caused but if we extend the deadline or waive the fee it will open a pathway for all kinds of legal challenges in the future which means students not getting their places on time.

We must learn from this but it will mean spending extra money on IT which means in turn we'll have to increase the application fees, which we did not want to do as it impacts poorer students adversely.

So now you've taken some of the heat out of the situation plus you've started preparing the ground for a fee increase. Most people will calm down if given a sincere acknowledgement that the frustration they're experiencing is appreciated and is being taken seriously. This is a useful tip for any walk of life, be it career or relationships

Keywords
CAO
career tip
career advice
communications