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| Gruppo International exposition |
IBM Vice president of Technical Strategy and Innovation, Irving Wladawsky-Berger is retiring in June, after 37 years of service to one company, a rather unusual distinction that he admits to in the blogged announcement he posted yesterday. It’s a good read, but I was especially taken by the following paragraph.
…prodded by our innovation initiatives at IBM, I have been asking myself seemingly “soft†questions about the intrinsic nature of business, especially what it means to be a globally integrated business in the 21st century. Revenue, profits and cash are clearly important. But at heart a business is a community of people organized to pursue common objectives. And increasingly, as people and communities interact with each other around the world, the cultural issues are becoming paramount. I am convinced that these are the life and death issues for companies, the keys to their ability to innovate and survive.
I know that this is a horse I’ve beaten before, and that I certainly have some bias, having been a social studies teacher and that my daughter is studying to be a social studies teacher. But I sincerely hope that we are coming to understand the critical need for a citizenry that knows not only the scientific aspects of our environment but is equally at home with the social elements of where and how and when we live. In my last years as a middle school social studies teacher, we knew that our jobs were in jeopardy. In fact, for my last year teaching, I was shifted, with no small amount of resistance on my part, to the math department.
When you think about it, the problems that face this world do not have nearly as much to do with what we know or don’t know about math and science, as they do with what we don’t know about each other and about working and living together. We keep wanting to use history to fuel hatred, rather than as lessons for the future.
Image Citation:
Cassè, Marco. “International Exposition.” Kazze’s Photostream. 28 Mar 2006. 24 Jan 2007 <http://flickr.com/photos/kazze/119305806/>.
Technorati Tags: warlick education socialstudies globalization IBM vladawsky-berger
“the problems that face this world do not have nearly as much to do with what we know or don’t know about math and science, as they do with what we don’t know about each other and about working and living together. ” A hit – a palpable hit. Well said, that man!
The thing is, though, that there seem to be fashions as to whose views must be sympathetically treated and whose must be rejected out of hand. Not so long ago, people would be vilified for having interracial relationships. Now a person will be vilified for saying that it is wrong to have an interracial relationship. Not so long ago, people would be thrown into jail for homosexuality. Now a person risks prosecution for calling same-sex marriage/adoption wrong. “Tolerance, tolerance,” we cry, but show no tolerance to those whose views are less “tolerant” than our own.
Sorry. Soapbox moment. A long time ago, when I was in my teens, I wailed to my mother that my sister couldn’t seem to accept me for what I was. She replied that I should accept my sister’s intolerance as part of who she was. I’ve never forgotten that (not that I’m a shining example of it in practice, of course!)