Thorns in the Roses

                My blog post this week is taking the reading in a little bit of a different direction, as I noticed a comparison between Scoble’s “Thorns in the Roses” and my own personal experiences within the field of education.  I understand not everyone is interested in educating children, so if you don’t find the connection as riveting as I do, then I completely understand. I just couldn’t pass up blogging about something I am extremely passionate about.

                Scoble highlights that the prickliest thorn that hinders the use of social media, specifically blogging, is undoubtedly the culture of a business. However, he also notes that one of the biggest barriers to entry into the world of blogging is fear of what could happen.  Companies worry about information leaking accidentally, conflicting with other corporate communications channels and the like, so often times, the status quo is maintained—the companies stick to not blogging. Another reason why individuals within companies steer clear of blogging is because they are unsure about what rules they need to abide by in regard to what they can blog about. The author explains that Microsoft’s only blog rule is “blog smart,” which has created many issues for the company. Therefore, what I took from this is that the thorns are even sharper when managers of companies are “vague, divided, or inconsistent on what should or should not be permitted.” There is more to risk and the stakes are high, so why would these employees blog!?

                From this point is where I diverge and delve into talking about state standards of education.  Of all I’ve learned about teaching in the past two years at Boston College, the one thing that always comes up is the lack of social studies and civic education in elementary schools.  Because there are often no state tests for these topics, teachers and schools seem to largely overlook their importance to young children’s growth and knowledge, focusing on the subjects in which the students need to pass a test. Of course, because those are the scores that inevitably impact the school and make a statement about the school’s success.  Another concern for those who do attempt to incorporate these topics into their school curricula is how to go about teaching young children about controversial issues, war/conflict, and violence.  However, so many studies find that students actually want to learn about these complex and multifaceted ideas and, more importantly, they can handle the content despite what teachers think about “scaring” or “traumatizing” young students with these aspects of our history. This illustrates teachers’ barrier to entry into educating their classes on these issues—fear. They are scared of children’s reactions, which lead to their parents’ reactions, which turn around and reflect on the quality and image of the school and its teachers. Therefore, they opt for the low-risk path and avoid the topics altogether.  Similarly, many teachers argue that there is not a lot of guidance or support from the state or national standards/legislature about what can or can’t be taught, comparative to the “vague, divided, or inconsistent” rules from managers about the nature of blogging within a company.  For this same reason, teachers circumvent many topics that are important to expose their students to, simply because there are not a lot of explicitly stated guidelines about which topics can and should be taught at an elementary school level.

                However, the debate in education is how to better prepare teachers for introducing the controversial issues that they are so frightened to bring into their classrooms.  Literature argues that teachers need more support and encouragement so that they feel comfortable and confident in their ability to educate young students about war, violence, and other complex contemporary issues, which will hopefully deter the inherent fear that tends to accompany the teaching of these topics.  In turn, their students will not be deprived of the things they want to learn about and should know about, and there will be less of an avoidance of social studies and civic education in schools nationwide.  I don’t know what you think, but I certainly agree that these are not disposable topics that need not be included in the education of all students of all ages.  However, fear and uncertainty all too often push the subjects to the sidelines, which has serious implications for our students who are increasingly showing that they not as well-prepared to become informed, active, and competent citizens.

                So, my question for you is: Do you agree that students are negatively impacted by teachers’ reluctance to partake in educating their classes on these complex issues? If so, do you think that customers’ knowledge and experience similarly suffers when companies/employees are hesitant to engage with them via social media platforms? Should both companies and teachers take risks for the sake of their audience?  What are consumers missing out on when companies don’t take the time to blog and interact with the customers and inform the outside world about the business? Or, are they not missing anything at all? I’m interested to hear what you think!