Talk:Education for Increasing Expertise





Comment by David Moursund 6/14/08
Many of you have heard the following story about the railroad industry. Quite a few years ago, some railroad leaders were asked the question, "What business are you in?", they responded by saying, "The railroad business." That answer worked well for many years. However, eventually there were lots of competing forms of transportation. The superhighway system and trucking took away a lot of the railroads' business. Airplanes took away quite a bit of passenger business. Many railroads went bankrupt before they discovered that in actually, they were in the transportation business.

Now, ask a similar question of educators. They will often respond that they are in the education business or in the teaching business. Increasingly, such people will find that they face considerable competition from others who see things differently. The "see things differently" group will respond with answers such as "We are in the building human capacity business." or "We are in the business of helping people and their tools gain increased expertise in solving problems and accomplishing tasks." I like the idea of being in the expertise-increasing business.