Pedagogic Urgency

"Competitive Urgency" is a term coming from the world of business. This term was used by Marvin Bower, in his 1966 book, The Will to Manage. Bower believed that (as of 1966), American companies were managed more effectively than British ones, chiefly due to a greater sense of competitive urgency in the culture of American companies. A few manifestations of that attitude include:

• Seizing opportunities
• Building on strength, rather than shoring up weaknesses
• Facing problems directly
• Deal with personnel problems - avoid keeping poor performers
• Acting in the present, with the mind to build strength for the long term

All these seem almost self evident. Just like any other work of genius. It is also evident that they run directly opposite of the way most educational establishment are built and the way they function.

Considering, instead of a business-minded company, an educational unit of any size: a national education establishment, a local government educational department, a school, a class-teacher, a parent with a child. We can translate the term of Competitive Urgency with the one of Pedagogic Urgency.

There are opportunities in the form of news items, something a child says or asks, anything that happens outside the expected script. An unseized opportunity is a missed chance to teach something. Many schools and classes function with a sense that everything should be planned, and there must be no surprises. There is much to be said in favor of planning, but overdoing it means overlooking any opportunity.

Focus on strength or weakness was addressed by Peter Drucker when he highlighted a difference between a typical American public school (let's call it a type-G school) that sets out to "help the underprivileged" and a typical private school (let's call it a type-T school) that wishes to "enable those who want to learn, to learn". The former defines itself by failures, the latter - by success. Please note carefully that there is no inherent contradiction between being underprivileged and wanting to learn. An underprivileged kid who wants to learn is interesting to both types of schools. It's just that the type-G school is interested in the kid's problems, and the type-T school is interested in the kid's potential as a learner.

Facing problems: One can easily see that this was written in 1966. These days no one would allow a negative word like "problem" in a discussion. Even "challenge" is a bit too harsh a word. Cynicism aside: Education, or even the simplified version of "schooling" is complex enough to be a breeding ground for many types of problems: A single kid, a whole class, a single teacher, a whole union, a single parent, the whole PTA, finance, new subjects, politics, health and more. It's tempting to try to avoid dealing with the problem; let someone else deal with it on their shift. Guess what: They also tend to just wait until their shift is over.

Personnel problems: Oh dear. There goes the consensus again. It is widely appreciated that an excellent teacher can have a profoundly positive impact on the lives of the students. Similarly, it is common wisdom that a good school principal makes for a much better school, whatever the other circumstances. What about a dexcellent teacher? One who may have once been a good teacher, but is worn out, or one who never should have been a teacher? It is not as pleasant to talk about this, but such a teacher can cause almost-irreversible damage to generations of students. I should know - I had a few of those. What about a bad principal? Their whole school suffers. So, what should "the system" do with under-performers who - even without malice - inflict damage on the lives of the students? Where I come from - the system can do about nothing. A bad teacher will remain a teacher, even if all rungs of management and parents know she (most teachers here are women) has a destructive effect on students. It takes an exceptionally strong principal to be able to dislodge such a teacher, and even then it takes a few years.

Action and Vision: Long-term vision and immediate action in the present, are two poles of effective management. There are very few people who are both visionaries and people-of-action. You can sometimes find them at the head of multi-billion (doesn't matter what currency) business empires they built themselves. Luckily, the education system is inherently made of many people, and is built over generations. Education doesn't require a single person to embody its vision and action. The necessity here is to build an organization where there are always people with vision on all levels, always people of action on all levels, and that they communicate and cooperate.

Bottom line: In order to succeed, education can learn from successful businesses. Like any large organization with complex goals, situated in a changing environment, a certain type of powerful responsiveness determines success. For businesses competing with each other, it has been called "Competitive Urgency." For education establishments striving to prepare children for a constantly changing future, it can be called Pedagogic Urgency.