Installment # 65

At Stanford University and at Cal I think the great majority of professors were on the left side of the political spectrum, ranging of course from moderate to manic.  Some on the far left seemed to pride themselves on being part of the “lunatic fringe.” At any rate, thanks to the power of association, and being young and impressionable, I bought into the liberal side of politics.  I remember reading the newspapers and cutting out news articles that I thought provided examples of American imperialism, by which I think I meant examples of where the United States was intervening, strong-arming, intimidating, etc, in order to exploit the labor and natural resources of other countries – being the bully in the playground, if you will.  Interestingly, after 7 years in public accounting, I didn’t think that way anymore. 

I am not going to go into my political thoughts, or how I got to this point.  They are only opinions, not convictions, and political convictions are largely over-reactions to half-truths, in my opinion, anyway.  The interesting idea is how we begin to think like the people we associate with, or in this case listen to.  Both the preacher and the teacher stand before us with more knowledge on the subject at hand than we have, with a planned and often rehearsed presentation, and a conviction borne of passion, or vice versa, a passion borne of conviction.  As I have said, unless you consciously reject and refuse to accept the germ of an idea, it will lodge and fester and eventually bloom forth as belief or a burning desire (like running a marathon).

If I may hazard an example, it has been my observation that Don’s and Audrey’s thinking have changed a lot since moving to Tennessee.  They seem a lot more conservative politically and a lot more church-oriented.  They associate mostly with retired people their age or older.  They live in part of the so-called Bible belt, and it shows.  I am by no means being critical or trying to belittle how they think.  There is nothing wrong with how they think and, of course, they have the right to believe whatever they want.  I don’t necessarily even disagree with them.  My point is just that I see them as an example of the power of association, no more right or wrong than the power that attracted me to marathon racing.

During George W. Bush’s presidency I found myself drifting to the left, politically, even as I saw Don drifting to the right.  It got to the point where we had to stop passing emails onto each other, rather than risk provoking each other.  I actually would have voted for Obama in 2008, I was so dissatisfied with the Republicans under Bush, but I knew that Sandy was sticking with the Republicans (John McCain), and I didn’t want us to cancel out each other’s vote.  I also knew that California was safely in Obama’s hands, so that it didn’t matter how I voted, really.  In the years since 2008 I have been drifting - maybe now running - away from the Democrats under Obama, and appreciating more and more why Don feels the way he does.  I don’t want to get into any more specifics than that. I think I have seen Don and Audrey move hard to the right, due in part to whom they associate with; and I was moving to the left, due to the voices I was listening to.

I would offer one “political” observation.  A free press, “the fourth estate,” is critical to sustaining our democratic system, but that assumes a free press that is reliable and effective; unbiased and untainted; fair and balanced.  The downfall of the press began when TV news programs began competing for viewers by emphasizing form over substance; by focusing on appearance and personality; developing a loyal viewer following.  They try to present important news in an entertaining way and entertaining news as if it is important.  On days when there is little news to report, they present stories as if they were important, and devote as much time and emotion to the important as to the unimportant.  Based on tone and attention, a win by the local high school baseball team seems as important as the overthrow of a government.  Add to this the “need for speed” in getting stories put together and presented.  A Whitehouse correspondent, for example, needs to get a quote or a quip quickly, as he/she competes with other stations to report on the latest developments.  This often results in reporters seeming to record a spokesperson’s talking points and repeating them in prime time as news: the press becoming a tool of the newsmaker, instead of a constraining force. 

Additionally and unfortunately, the word “news” is derived from the word “new.”  It is unfortunate because many important corrections or developments relating to previous headlines are virtually ignored because the subject matter itself in not “new.”  For example, 16 deaths from the swine flu so far this season is news, but whatever happened to the town of 16,000 that was wiped out by that hurricane last month?  We also know that the authorities have a legitimate need to engage in “disinformation,” or deliberate leaking of false information in their attempts to catch bad guys by surprise.  So we mustn’t overreact to information that may not be true or complete.  During the height (depth?) of a cynical period for me, I did my best to ignore all the news and proclaimed that, as opposed to being uninformed, I was “not misinformed,” which I thought was the better of the two alternatives.  Now I just take everything with a grain of salt, as they say, and don’t overreact to anything.  It is said that 5% of the people make things happen; 15% watch things happen, and the other 80% have no idea what is going on.  I like to think that I am part of the 15%, but that due to the failure of the press to serve us properly, I probably have no idea what is going on.

A person whose title is “head of school” (no CAPS) at Almaden Country School (not Principal or Superintendant or anything – just head of school) recently wrote an interesting article describing the “current paradigm” in education as centered on standardized testing, with emphasis on memorization and recall and the notion that “there is only one right answer to every problem,” explaining that, “Our content-focused model of learning was popularized during the Industrial Age in America, when it was necessary for great numbers of employees to have command of a standardized body of information so that factories could run efficiently.” 

The five big shifts he recommends in education in American schools are: 1)Transitioning from passive to active learning; 2) Moving from independence to interdependence; 3) Assessing what matters beyond content mastery; 4) Reshaping the role of the teacher; and 5) Development of learning networks.  I especially liked his statement that, in his vision, “The teacher becomes a guide on the side, rather than the sage on the stage.”  The fact that a leader in current public education thinks like this encourages me that the needed changes are on the way.

In elementary school we still need to memorize the multiplication table and grasp several other mathematical concepts in order to use calculators and in order to think quickly and clearly.  And although we have spell check now, we see a lot of grammatically incorrect emails.  Young people must master the fundamentals of language and grammar in order to communicate effectively.  I worked with many, many people during my career and gladly made allowances for people for whom English was not their first or primary language – and in Silicon Valley there are many of those.  But it was always obvious when someone just wasn’t well educated or very smart.  Those folks are in a self-limiting situation as far as their careers are concerned.  With the modern Internet-based tools, there is nowhere to hide if you did not get a solid grounding in elementary and middle school.

Sandy and I listen to young parents lament about how much time they need to spend helping their kids do their homework and prepare for class.  We both agree in our recollections that we did not need to spend much time at all helping our kids with their school work.  As best we can recall, each of them was responsible and motivated enough to do their homework, and intelligent enough to understand it.  Occasionally there would be a question that one of us could help them with, but not often.  I remember the time Bobby had a homework assignment to write a poem, and I volunteered to write one for him.  He was impressed with how relatively easy it was for me, and I was quite proud of myself.  Imagine my dismay when he received a “B” or “C” on it (can’t remember which).  I was sure it was worth an “A”.  I guess I took it personally to some extent, and the kids had a good laugh over it.  I thought I had guarded against making it obvious that Bobby had not written it, but maybe the teacher could tell that it was not Bob’s work.  The teachers do get a good feel for what the kids are capable of in the various academic areas.  Michelle seems to remember a time I wrote something for her, too, that didn’t go over well, but I don’t remember that.

I’m not sure when, but it was after our kids graduated from elementary school, that the emphasis in public education shifted more toward helping kids with their self-images and self-worth.  The theory, I guess, was that children could and would learn more readily if they felt good about themselves…had self-images that helped them believe that they indeed were capable of learning.  I don’t know whether that worked well enough, but in the meantime some kids seemed to have received an “entitlement” attitude, instead of a competence and self-worth attitude.  The “You are worthy” message instilled in a young person is evidently too often received or interpreted as “I am entitled.” A parallel trend that we see questioned is how every child who participates in a sport gets a trophy.  “You are all winners!”  Okay.  My personal favorite is the “Most Improved player” award.  From my experience coaching, it means: “You are still the worst player on the team, but you are better that you were at the beginning of the season!”

In one of my college level accounting classes we did a deep dive into how to process and prepare a paycheck.  There were so many laws and rules and options and calculations that I began to despair.  It could take hours to process just a few checks; the likelihood of making an error was great; and there is nothing more important to the employee than a correct paycheck, on time.  (There is also the idea that it is self-correcting if you underpay someone – he’ll present himself in the payroll office pronto; but if you overpay someone, you may never know, and in fact the error may be perpetuated, depending on the nature of it).  After sweating it out for a few days, the teacher mentioned that there were computerized payroll services.  All you had to do was keep certain master file records updated, input the current activity, and the payroll service would process, prepare and deliver the checks.  I should say that these were rudimentary systems in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but they were mechanized and saved a lot of time and avoided a lot of mistakes.

When the teacher first revealed to us the existence of payroll services, I became annoyed.  Why did I have to go through all this learning, memorizing and practicing, when the computer was going to do it for me?  Years later as an auditor and accounting manager, it was immeasurably helpful to understand the complexities and the degree of difficulty that goes into maintaining the payroll system, complying with the many state and federal laws (and changes therein), company policies (and changes therein) and paying every employee on an accurate and timely basis each pay day.  Without that understanding it would be impossible to audit the process or to support the process as an accounting manager.  I had a CFO one time say that payroll is simple; that we should just be able to “set it and forget it.”  I knew he had no idea what he was talking about.  (CFOs often do not come up through the accounting ranks, so have no appreciation for the complexities.  Ignorance may be bliss for the CFO, but not for the accountants who report to them.)