I have had my 2.5 year old granddaughter here for a few days while her momma recovers from some surgery on her shoulder. It\u2019s rather difficult for momma to be tracking after her two year old when one has a bum wing.<\/p>\n
This has induced me to watch more kid TV programming than I care to but any amount of torture is bearable for my granddaughter\u2019s sake. I have become a bit enlightened how our educators or at least entertainment teaching programmers think preschoolers should be influenced.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve discovered a change in young children\u2019s programming where today it is apparent that no one is capable of doing anything alone. Everything must be accomplished by team effort. The team is stronger than individual effort. There sometimes appears to be one leader whose ability must carry along those who cannot or simply choose not to do their share. These others are usually portrayed as an animated animal sidekick or (in cartoons) a set of tools with their own intelligence.<\/p>\n
Individual effort is discouraged and displayed as being \u201cunfair\u201d or perhaps \u201crude\u201d in everyday activities. To me it appears to be a communal extension of everyone gets a share of the work so no one person gets the credit or blame for the outcome. A Utopian \u201ceveryone is equal\u201d society. No one looses or gets left out, but then there is no social pressure to excel. Probably a great idea for preschoolers, but how far does (should) it go?<\/p>\n
I personally think this process is backwards. Build personal strengths first, and then start team building. But then, I may be just a simple minded backwards dolt.<\/p>\n
I can understand this early team-play concept for kids too young to yet know their strengths and weaknesses. But at some point I think we all need to become individuals and know where and at what we excel.<\/p>\n
Business management has finally realized that it is far more productive to strengthen an employee\u2019s existing natural strengths than to \u201cfix\u201d inherent weaknesses. Of course both strengths and weaknesses need to be identified. From that point the team concept makes sense. A team of four, each with different strengths is far more productive than trying to create or find an individual with all four strong abilities.<\/p>\n
That concept does come through with many superhero fantasy teams seen on Saturday morning programming. When I was a kid (Yes, I was once!) super heroes worked alone. Now they have to be a team member.<\/p>\n
I have long been made aware of this \u201cteam trend\u201d when interviewing post graduate new hires. Many interviewees think I am interested in what their various teams have done through all their school years. That is the LAST thing I want to know. I am hiring one person, not the team. I want to know of what the person is capable of doing. What did this person I\u2019m interviewing do for their team that was an outstanding contribution? Don\u2019t tell me about the awards the team as a whole earned.<\/p>\n
A football team of all quarterbacks would not be much of a team, would it? A bat boy may be a team member but I wouldn\u2019t hire him if I was looking for home runs. Great teams are made from individuals with complimentary outstanding abilities. Pre-Madonna\u2019s need not apply.<\/p>\n
So OK, start out equal but along the path realize everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Encourage individual excellence with an understanding of how that strength should be shared with others of equal initiative. Do not burden real achievers with the mediocrity of weak team members. Otherwise, the best will soon go elsewhere. Combined individual effort is what makes teams great. Individual effort competing within teams breaks them.<\/p>\n
Train as an individual to be the best you can be; cooperate as a team member to do more than can be done alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have had my 2.5 year old granddaughter here for a few days while her momma recovers from some surgery on her shoulder. It\u2019s rather difficult for momma to be tracking after her two year old when one has a bum wing. This has induced me to watch more kid TV programming than I care to but any amount of torture is bearable for my granddaughter\u2019s sake. I have become a bit enlightened how our...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing","category-observation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}