Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    You are definitely the first person I've heard since I've been here
    (and that's only a few months) who has questioned this use (or overuse)
    of the word 'skills'.  How does a course on "Developing Interpersonal
    Communications" taken by an individual qualify that individual as
    having 'interpersonal skills'?  Everyone has 'interpersonal skills',
    they're just defined differently.  
    
    I suggest that a skill is something that must be learned and practiced
    over time.  A skill never stagnates; instead it continually develops,
    adapting to situations which arise.   Someone who is 'skilled' at
    dealing with people, for instance, has learned to read people's faces
    and between the lines of what they say.  That person has learned (and
    this comes only from practice) to really listen to what is transpiring
    between people.
    
    I would define people as having 'capabilties', which over time could
    be honed and refined into 'skills'.  We all have the capacity to be
    skilled communicators, athletes etc., but it is only through
    practice that those capabilties can be developed enough to be called SKILLS.
                                                                               

    
    re: .1
    Added to my list of abused words(skills, proactive, opportunities...)

    RE: .0

    David,

    Its interesting you should write this note.  I have written about
    some of this but from an entirely different perspective.  When do
    the acquisition of these skills become an end rather than the means?

    It is good to write well, speak well, or behave well.  When do we
    acknowledge that we sometimes do these things because we are playing
    a role rather than using them to fulfill our life dreams?  We see
    many people going through life doing what society says is the thing
    to do/be.  Somewhere the script becomes societies mass hallucination
    rather than a persons dream.  But you say, we have those wonderful
    skills, there only wonderful if they are the skills you aspire to 
    have and they match your values.  I write this from the point of
    view that these "skills" are taught as a weapon.  Look for the
    people that really can communicate, do they wield the skills like
    a club?  Do they use them to influence people to goals that were
    only their dreams?

    It's interesting that about mid life some people with those wonderful
    skills fall apart,  seems they lose touch with their values.  Some
    don't.  They retain the dream, make corrections and continue to 
    achieve or simply help others to achieve.  Do the skills allow you
    to derive satisfaction for saying what you wanted?  Do they allow you
    to better express who you are?  Are they there to hide you from 
    society?  Many do.

    I've kinda hit some questions, some maybe rhetorical others get to
    what we are, or are not.  Is it a skill when we hide behind it or
    when we use it to better something?

    john
    
    

    Re: .0
    
    >Quite why people should consider themselves as programmable vehicles
    >of skills is not clear to me.
    
    Perhaps because they are?
    
    >I believe that this 'mechanistic' approach to learning is much
    >too simplistic and in my view grossly underestimates the enormous
    >difficulties in learning.
    
    So what does it leave out?
    
    Re:  in general
    
    One of the most interesting courses I ever took was the Instructor
    Skills course.  During the week, we examined some of the ways that
    people learned (and different people learn differently) and how
    to tailor the classroom experience to suit these needs.  In addition
    to getting the theory, we also got to practice.  Finally, we got
    an excellent demonstration.  The instructor did everything she was
    telling us to do.
    
    Although this one was the best, I have taken a couple of other 'skills'
    courses.  They were also useful.  However, just because I've taken
    the course, that doesn't mean I apply everything I learned when
    appropriate.  I forget or I get lazy or something.
    
    A skill is a tool, nothing more and nothing less.  Learning how
    to use the tool effectively is a matter of practice, feedback and
    advice from experienced practitioners.  If I want to be a good pianist,
    I have to practice.  If I want to be a good writer, I need to practice.
    If I want to be a good listener, I have to practice -- not only
    do it, but think while I'm doing it and then after I've done it.

                           
    	"Society's mass hallucination" - I love it!  Mebbe I'll make
    that my new personal name...
    
    	Perhaps we as a society are so swept up in the "English" ways
    (after all, that is what this society has decended from) that we're
    we're lost in the "What else is there?" syndrome.
    
    	An "English" way of education, for example, is to offer a
    completely uniform, curricula based instruction for the development
    of basic skills, such as math, rhetoric, writing, etc.
    
    	This assumes a homogenious aspect in all the students; they're
    all the same. Just like a VAX, doesnt matter what you program into
    it, it should run the same on any one machine. Except in terms of
    performance, of course.
    
    	Unfortunately, this way of doing things has serious drawbacks
    when used with people. First off, and most obvious, people are not
    "all the same", so the assumption that has been taken for granted
    for so long now is a poor one.
    
    	In fact, making people feel "uniform" has been shown in itself
    to be an abandonment in the context of the person's "true self". An
    education system which does this does not care about individual's
    true selves; it cares how well the individual can conform to the system.
    
    	That is why it's no longer working, in this country. The "English"
    way is no longer best, it's no longer even working or applicable
    anymore. Education systems must now be geared toward the individual,
    rather than expecting the individual to gear themselves toward the
    system.
    
    	Kinda hard to swallow, isnt it...
    
    	Marketable skills are handled in business like any other commodity,
    I suspect. Marketing has that fluid aspect to it in that the product
    can be anything; a pork-belly, a person, or even a 'name' like "E.F.
    Hutton". Products have corresponding values; if *you* happen to be
    the marketable product, obviously your value has to do with what
    skills you possess.
    
    	From a business perspective, it'd be nice to have a "universal"
    product, which is kinda why computers do so well. If your product
    is people, it'd be nice if you could "retrain" them at any point
    in time to satisfy a customer's need. Retrain the DSM-II programmer
    to be able to handle "C" and UNIX, so they can handle future concerns
    in the "newer" marketplace...
    
    	Unfortunately, people will never be as consistant as a machine,
    and it takes more than a "reprogramming" every once in a while to
    keep them competitive in industry. There's always the story of the
    Computer Science grad who turns to Social Sciences (a not-as-marketable
    skill) because they _feel_ like it; this is not accounted for in
    the "business" model. You dont have "feelings" there, cause they
    are illogical.
    
    	Perhaps, as an alternative to saying "take this, this 'n this
    - they'll be good to have under your belt for your career / future"
    A manager will have to learn how to ask, "What do you feel like
    doing with yourself at this point in your life?" - Or some other
    individualistic type question, in an attempt to gear the work more
    toward the person. Or at least insure that the person is actually
    interested in the work.
    
    	I wonder if there's any possibility for this in my lifetime?
    
    	Joe Jas

    
    RE:.5 Joe Jas.
    
    Since what I wrote was from the emotional and personal realationships
    level I'm contextually out of sync with yours and the authors (.0)
    writing relative to business.
    
    Your comments re: uniform packages.  Interesting!  I have always
    had great difficulty in school mostly because of the difference
    between the way they were taught and I learned.
    
    Isn't classifying skills another method of piginholing people?
    
    john
    
    
    
    

      I was struck by an episode of "60 minutes" that was discussing the
      idiot savant condition. One of the persons they talked to was a
      mentally retarded boy with ceribral palsy. One day after years of
      doing pretty much of nothing he walked to a piano and played a
      perfect rendition of a fairly complex classical piece of music.

      Conventional piano instruction would say that you have to study
      for years to play like that. If for no other reason how would your
      hands be physically able to play? Yet he did, with NO training in
      the skills to play the piano.

      How can any learning theory explain Mozart? He was writing and
      playing music at age 3. Where did he learn it?

      I have also read that people who visualize themselves doing
      something that requires a skill tend to do better than those who
      do not. What a great gift it would be to know how the idiot savant
      or the child genious has managed to learn their skills. Maybe we
      could program ourselves if we just knew how. Our brain may control
      our body more throughly than we can appreciate. Maybe the engine
      that thinks it can is the real truth of learning. liesl

    re -1
    
    What is more amazing is that the man can remember any music by just
    listening to it once.  They played a newly composed work (fairly
    long).  After he listened to it once, he immediatedly played it
    back, and with clever VARIATIONS after that!  He was also born blind.

    Eugene

    re .8 and .7
    I had thought the boy was autistic.  Maybe I missed it or confused
    it with some reading I was doing at the time.
    Yes, amazing -- and unexplained -- and, apparently, unteachable.
    For autistic folks, the ability appears to decline at puberty.
    But the mere fact that most of us find this astonishing reflects
    how little attention we give (or ask to be paid) to sound in a
    specific way.  Sure, we talk about "tone of voice" but we rarely
    use much vocal range or dynamic variation.  Kids who can sing along
    with 100s of pop tunes grow up into adults barely able to sing
    Happy Birthday.  Some how the joy of the activity turns into
    embarrassment.  That happens with a lot of learning opportunities
    --
    the joy of the new can be turned into pressure (rather than growth).
    Not always, but too much [says he with a kid taking SATs this weekend].
    wandered around a bit there, sorry...
    -jd