For the past few days, I got distracted and troubled and felt helpless as the events in Japan unfolded to reveal the cumulative effects of natural disasters striking the humanity at large to show how fragile we are to deal with the fury of nature.
Let me look closely into the earthquake that ferociously shook the mighty Japan through tsunami, nuclear plant disaster and adding worsening climate that hampered recovery efforts.
Is this a wake-up call to other nations with nuclear capability to rethink on how the events unfolding at Japan can help us to plan differently or change the current plans or modify the future plans? To power the nations around the world who are hungry for electrical energy as the primary source for survival and sustenance of national economies, what is our next course of action?
Should we go back to steam-operated machinery to decrease our dependency on the electrical energy as the primary source? OR
Should we rely on green energy sources like solar or bio to decrease our dependency on the electrical energy?
Looking back to my previous blog on Iconic learning, where I quoted from Igor’s book on ‘how to build a mind’ that Iconic learning can also result in learning of sequences of events and their outcomes to develop ability to imagine and hence the planning ability, does Gen M has the ability to learn something from this? Let me examine.
It is worthwhile to note the roles played by internet and the global sharing of information through the connected world as soon as this event happened. Does this create a knee-jerk reaction by Gen M to the real problems or helps us to plan better?
Can Greatest Generation who are self-sacrificing, the baby boomers who are categorized as having characteristics of activists, and, Gen M who are known to have the shortest attention span, who are all part of 20th century, work together with those generation gaps?
Is Gen M too young to tackle the above questions for some answers? We know, however, that Gen M have a ‘can-do’ attitude. This can lead to one or the other – progress or perish. I am not splitting the hair when I talk about these three different types of generations that have all sprung up in one century. Looking at pattern of changing characteristics of these generations, what is in hold for the generation after Gen M – Gen C, a Generation of Chaos?
Can this be preventable? Yes, provided the education acquired through event learning shines light upon the answers that Gen M is capable of dealing with. Does this mean that the delivery of education needs to change – as the learning process is influenced by multi-tasking, multi-cultural, multi-lingual characteristics of the Gen M masses? If so, what is the best way to go about to bringing that change? Does COL got an answer? Does COL embrace event learning better? I say yes.