By: Rob Weidamoyer

The syntax in the title is intentional- Are our rights wrong? The implication appears to be true when we consider how so much of what the Constitution provides for us as a free people seems to be intolerable and at the very least, offensive not in the rest of the world, but to those for whom our country is where they seek the freedom to communicate their disgust toward our insolent existence. What’s worse is that I’m not referring to anyone’s religion or faith, but those that would seek to tell free citizens that new music is too explicit, their skirts are too short or our respect for others is non-existent, felt from the playground to the workplace and every where in between. School administrators tell African-American girls they can’t wear bandanas, but cheerleaders can wear headbands. The marching band can’t play rock n’ roll, but the football coaches blast unedited rap through the stadium speakers. Girls aren’t allowed to wear shorts above the knee, but the dance department has costumes that make the performers appear nude.

How can certain groups be told they can exercise a right that is afforded to someone else in a country where everyone is supposed to be equal? Our students learn almost everything they know in school, including the double standards they experience on a daily basis like dress codes that tell girls they can’t wear things that will distract boys, because it’s ok to look trashy, just not in school (Glassberg, 2014). By that logic, shaming girls is way easier than teaching boys to control themselves and punish them appropriately when they do, without fear of repercussion from the state’s child welfare agency. The image below demonstrates how places like schools ironically forego educating their students on a subject in an effort to provide a more immediate way to pacify the irate.

This is not to say that men are always in the wrong, or women have no self-respect. The crux of the issue is a constant desire to keep everyone happy by somehow not generating a solution, but buying moral band aids in bulk. The objectification of women shares the spotlight with those who may dress based on religious reasons, but are exempt from the dress codes to which everyone else is subjected. The bottom line is that over-the-top fixes of today infringe upon rights established from eternity. If anyone is allowed to wear something on their head, everyone should be allowed to follow suit. If music is deemed inappropriate for one organization, it should be banned district-wide.

Something like Cultural Synergy (Moran, Harris and Moran, 2011) will never happen in places where individual rights are trampled to keep someone else from being offended, because the ability to be offended is also a right. However, those who are offended are not immediately afforded extra rights to shame or belittle those whom offended them into changing their position or ways to accommodate someone else. A free country implies that everyone is free, all the time, without fear of prosecution for those freedoms granted to them by their own existence and protected by the law. If character content is a pillar of those charged with providing examples for our youth, then why is it that these individuals are somehow allowed to dictate who wears what, listens to whom or enjoys anything because it fits a larger, more important image that has no place for individual freedoms.

All of this occurs while these same micro managers boast that nothing ever goes wrong and the standards set by those before you that used to be allowed to enjoy all the things we now consider objectionable are a thing of the past and will stay there because humans don’t evolve and as the world gets more difficult to navigate. Shielding a cultures youth from the realities of the world only cripples them for life by not providing the tools and resources they need to survive.

 

Reference:

Image- http://beautyisonlyskindeep13.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-recent-yearbook-craziness.html

Moran, R.T, Harris, P.R, Moran, S.V. (2011) Managing Cultural Differences Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World,. Oxford: Routledge

Redmond, Brian (2014) Lesson 2, pp.1,5. Introduction to Culture. The Pennsylvania State University World Campus

Lauren Glassberg (2014). Female Students Nationwide Protest Against Sexist Dress Codes. [ONLINE] Available at: http://7online.com/education/female-students-protest-sexist-dress-codes/339009/. [Last Accessed October 11, 2014].

By: Rob Weidamoyer

Defining the interactions of different groups or ideas and calling it Cultural Synergy (Moran, Harris and Moran 2011) puts a simple label on a complex event, but how many of those cultures are inherently synergistic? Is it more difficult for certain cultures to find a synergy between themselves and another group because the culture itself lacks the belief that benefit could come from such a meeting, or is there just a general unwillingness to cooperate because the culture is too egocentric to see beyond it’s own existence? Smaller, contemporary, man-made cultures suffer from this aversion toward welcoming anyone with differences because the materialistic need for instant gratification has become the driving force in our on-demand society where the individual is always more important than the team.

ESPN’s Sports Center spends so much time reporting on individuals with nicknames like “King James” that clearly have no loyalty or concern for the good of their peers, that it’s not unusual to see those who idolize that player worrying more about how they look when they play a game, rather than how they’re playing. Fundamental skills are pushed aside for flashy moves and trash talk; things that can’t be taught in a classroom, but are the most effective tools in keeping those using them out of school. When was the last time a player’s union of athletes that children everywhere look up to fought for contracts with better health benefits, not just more money?

Cultural Synergy displayed by the players union clashed with that of the team owners because both groups wanted more money, not less and the owners wanted the players to make less as compensation for new salary cap and luxury taxes being imposed on franchises. The synergy within each group was high, but so inclusive that they had no chance of coming to a true compromise, so each group ended up getting only half of what they wanted, the start of the 2011-12 season was delayed and no one suffered more than the fans who missed 16 of the 82 scheduled games that year (Staudohar, 2012).

The below image is a humorous, but accurate illustration of the situation:

The lack of synergy wasn’t just felt by the fans, but others who suffered greatly because the players couldn’t get by on a little less of the millions they were already making. Instead of making sure everyone that enjoyed or earned a living of basketball was working together, some less obvious suffering also occurred at the hands of the players. Somehow players making 20 million dollars a year think teams that lose a few million because the players are greedy shouldn’t be complaining.

Folks that have way more legitimate complaints due to a lack of athletic synergy:

1. Restaurants near stadiums – Restaurants located close to NBA stadiums rely on the spike in pre and post game business. Some even hire extra help to prepare for the start of the season. Imagine a single mother losing her job because of the greed being shown by the NBA players  (Jant, 2011).

2. Retailers – Many retailers will be hit by the cancellation of part of the regular season (Jant, 2011).

3. Others – Everyone from ticket sellers to the companies that supply the stadiums with toilet paper to the guy that runs the pop machines in the stadiums (Jant, 2011).

4. Even local governments will also see a noticeable drop in tax revenues (Jant, 2011).

Telling someone that makes $10 an hour they’re now going to make only $9 is devastating, but telling someone that makes ten million they’re only making nine million has much less of an impact. If basketball’s culture as a sport was less about money and more about the road to success, lockouts would never happen because everyone would be looking out for the best interest of the game and it’s effect on their fans. Creating a culture whose synergy comes from doing the right thing for everyone instead of doing something right for yourself could use visibility like that of major sports to influence the rest of the world and maybe promote a more helpful, supportive existence. Instead, we’re left to endure a world where students can’t walk down the hallways at school without being laughed at because they don’t have the newest version of someone’s signature basketball sneaker that the player themselves never even wears.

 

Reference:

Jant (2011). NBA Games being Cancelled- Basketball Lockout News. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bettingbasketball.org/betting-news/130/nba-games-being-canceled-basketball-lockout-news/. [Last Accessed October 3rd, 2014].

Moran, R.T, Harris, P.R, Moran, S.V. (2011) Managing Cultural Differences Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World,. Oxford: Routledge

Redmond, Brian (2014) Leadership in a Global Context. The Pennsylvania State University World Campus

Staudohar, Paul D. (2012). The Basketball Lockout of 2011. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/12/art3full.pdf. [Last Accessed October 3rd, 2014].

By: Rob Weidamoyer

The realization of being wrong about something can be surprising, expected, or even so commonplace that no reaction is generated. Teaching high school students allows me to see all of these occur on a daily basis and without any hesitation or attempt to shield the natural expression from others until after the fact. However, twelve years in public safety allowed me to see reactions no human should ever have to endure, especially those that have just learned a family member or loved one is no longer alive and in the absolute worst cases, saw what little may be left of that individual. Nature and Nurture (Moran, Harris and Moran, 2011) have demonstrated that not all leadership qualities are the direct result of just genetics and environment.

I spent a career learning from some of the best first responders in the Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and New York City areas. Individuals who had seen things I couldn’t fathom, and were less affected by them due to years on the job of countless tragedies. These policemen, firefighters and other emergency service workers had leadership skills that absolutely could not be taught in a classroom and were not hereditary. They were the result of untenable environments and knowledge of previous incidents shared by those that came before them who knew passing along that information was the only way some of these people may survive. While all of the management skills in the world worked great back at a firehouse where gathering money and organizing a dinner required low level administrative effort, the ability to mitigate a life and death situation was actually less of a challenge for a group like this because they had more experience than any one person should ever know.

The picture below shows urgency that can only be experienced when a life is on the line.

The Human Factors in Change (Moran, Harris and Moran, 2011) are what allow some people to handle situations with ease when that same type of event would make others physically ill or give them nightmares for weeks. Surgeons see blood more than most people, but yet others faint at the sight of blood, so how can anything in the business world or even my classroom be effectively presented to employees, clients or students without risking the worst possible reactions? Adaptive Systems (Moran, Harris and Moran, 2011) allow for the mitigation of potential discomfort or even offensive presentations where these efforts can circumvent the usual roadblocks faced when attempts are made to shift operational details to increase productivity.

Positioning all of the desks in my classroom in an evenly spaced circle allows no one to hide in the back of the room as they are all now “up front”. A fire officer continuing to provide direction and motivation to his crew upon the discovery of a charred body allows them to still get the job done without being overwhelmed by the sight. Business managers can generate incentive programs for achievement in new production practices that may be initially met with heavy resistance. All of these examples are both forms of management and mitigation, but much like the constant misuse of the word “inspiration” when the speaker actually should be saying “motivation”, the clarity brought by knowing more skills can be learned from those around us if we follow their example of focus and drive by being open enough to accept that we may not have the best method in mind.

 

Reference:

FDNY Rescue 2 (2011) Available at: http://www.firecompanies.com/MFC/public/gallery_images/01317739480_orig.jpg. [Last Accessed September 27, 2014].

Moran, R.T, Harris, P.R, Moran, S.V. (2011) Managing Cultural Differences Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World,. Oxford: Routledge

Redmond, Brian (2014) Leadership in a Global Context. The Pennsylvania State University World Campus

 

By: Rob Weidamoyer

A high school classroom is hardly the place anyone would expect to observe a necessity for communications that relay information through a high context, recognizing the listener’s base understanding for the subject and then using lower context clarity for explaining things from the foundation of the lesson. However, the need to use global communication methods in localized environments like classrooms or lecture halls is just as critical when providing information to individuals that are actually part of a global audience. While some truly global considerations like culture differences and attributions can be less of a concern with a room full of American teenagers, sensitivity to the families and guardians of these young people can’t be overlooked when assigning homework or creating information sheets that need to go home with the student.

The ineffectiveness of using local communication methods on a global scale is relative to the size of any organization’s globe and its intended audience. If a classroom full of students in a general studies course includes individuals with special needs, those students will ultimately determine the pace at which the group progresses. An honors level course will move forward with little concern for those not working parallel to the standards of the curriculum because the expectation of a high context understanding is anticipated upon enrollment. Additionally, schools in areas where education is not viewed as the means to the end of an otherwise impoverished lifestyle that continues into adulthood will not experience great strides because the incentives are not tangible for those students.

The below chart shows a severe disparity between the amount of suspensions issued to African-American students compared to their Caucasian peers.

 

The immediate question for me as a teacher would be whether or not the school has clearly communicated the boundaries of acceptable behavior not just to the students, but also to the parents and guardians of these individuals as well. Some societal cultures are not fortunate enough to have families educated so sufficiently that they can understand school handbooks written like a crimes code. For those that see aberrant behavior glorified by entertainers who look, dress and speak the way they do, their assumption of acceptable behavior makes sense when the adults in their home lives don’t have the ability to relay high context writings in a low context manner that will be recognized and understood by their children. This inequality reaches a boiling point when whole communities then use those school handbooks as ammunition for claims of oppression because the school didn’t ensure understanding and those protesting are looking for justifiable answers.

There may be an advantage to my position as a music teacher that allows me to see both sides of this situation and maintain an understanding because I have every variation of student in my classroom. Many of my students communicate in a high context during school, only to go home to a low context world that they hope to escape one day. These students usually have a self-awareness and work ethic that ignores the societal assumption that their upbringing determines how they communicate. Unfortunately, being a music teacher also forces me to acknowledge that the examples many of my students have outside of school including actors, musicians and other public figures directly contribute to the ability of my students to embrace anything but a low context level of communication that is coupled with even lower levels of intelligence. All of these factors suggest that ensuring communications including everything from school handbooks to furniture building manuals should use global approaches clear to all potential recipients of that communication.

Reference:

Coke, Tanya E. (2014). Schools are doling out suspensions “like Tic Tacs,” here are some ways to keep kids in the classroom. [ONLINE] Available at: http://hechingerreport.org/content/schools-doling-suspensions-like-tic-tacs-ways-keep-kids-belong-classroom_15294/. [Last Accessed September 21, 2014].

By: Rob Weidamoyer

Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the world’s richest people is quoted in our text as saying that “Only when the tide goes out do you find out who is not wearing a bathing suit” (Moran, 2011). This motivates an excellent question in a world overrun with organizations going out of their way to tell anyone that will listen just how diverse they are and how having more women, minorities, or ethnicities somehow makes them better at all aspects of their existence. The trouble with this ideology is that unless the individuals hired to be flag poles for the diversity banners are actually the best people for that job, the boasting is pompous and unjustified. Profiling is frowned upon when it comes to race or beliefs, but it should be required when interviewing candidates for jobs that require high levels of competency.

During my career in the public safety field, I presented my white, male bosses with the resume of a young Israeli woman I had just interviewed that could not have been more than 5 feet, 5 inches tall and slightly more than a hundred pounds. The candidate had a master’s degree in communications from a well known university and completed her required service in the Israeli Defense Forces where she trained soldiers as a Krav Maga instructor after having learned the fighting style in her early teens. On paper, the woman could not have been more qualified, but my superiors questioned her ability to successfully do the job here without getting herself or anyone else hurt or killed because of her size and appearance. They changed their minds immediately when an African-American colleague of mine who at 6 feet 5 inches and over 250 pounds that could have easily played professional football, told the directors that she scared him and all he did was shake her hand.

It has become increasingly apparent to me that sometimes a fear of the unknown is enough to remove a qualified person from an equation and it is a practice that needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Every job applicant coming through a potential employer’s door could have the right references, resume and experience, but overlooking that for the sake of maintaining a false sense of diversity is not going to assist those who the diversification efforts were designed to help. The below graph shows the steady balancing of police forces in Canada from 1985 through 2006 where the overall number of officers has increased by roughly ten thousand, most of those jobs have been filled by well-qualified female recruits.

The above graph is an excellent illustration of the way diversity should be included in an existing workforce, rather than attempting to turn away qualified applicants that aren’t part of a quota. Realizing this, many employers have adopted the Equal Opportunity method of hiring when possible, even though some jobs with physical limitations will always be restrictive in nature. Some businesses have tried the “Apollonian” (Moran, 2011, p.16) approach of staying the course and not advertising in or removing themselves from the diversity game with no notable success or loss in either direction. The Nitoryu (Moran, 2011, p.66) style of handling two swords at one time, or in this case, maintaining an existing workforce while trying to integrate extremely diverse new hires has been difficult for many businesses and all but abandoned by some.

Lastly, watching the everyday interactions of my high school students in a very diverse area of the state reminds me that the ignorance towards differences in the adult world are developed over time and not with us when we are born, as some of my students haven’t been on the planet long enough to appreciate or dislike those whom are different. However, some do demonstrate behaviors fostered in home environments that make me worry for them as adults in the real world and their ability to stay out of trouble. Eventually some planets may align and allow for differences to only be recognized on the level of human character and not appearance, but until then the responsibility is on the world to promote acceptance, not tolerance that suggests someone’s differences must be endured rather than treated no differently than anyone else whether it’s on the street, the playground, or in my classroom.

Moran, R.T, Harris, P.R, Moran, S.V. (2011) Managing Cultural Differences Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World,. Oxford: Routledge

Redmond, Brian (2014) Leadership in a Global Context. The Pennsylvania State University World Campus

Image 1- http://www.mypolice.ca/police_statistics/statistics_Canada.html

 

By: Rob Weidamoyer

            As a music teacher, I find that the mental program (Hofstede, 2001) of my teaching culture is a comprehensive collection of methods used by my own teachers that allowed me to adapt their approaches for my own students. My experiences over the better part of two decades allow me to observe a major change in students about once every seven years with little of it being not the result of, but the reaction to evolving technology. Teaching at the high school level of grades nine through twelve demonstrates a great deal of character, positive and negative, from the teenagers as they evolve physically, mentally and socially. Their ideas tend to improve or change drastically, with the occasional few that have no real substantial thoughts and never seem to grow, while the behaviors are affected greatly by physical changes many of them experience in height and weight fluctuations that are difficult to mitigate when they’re subject to the damning critique proclaimed by hundreds of their peers on a daily basis. Values also change, but many are superficial to serve a social purpose and are not the true thoughts of the individual doing everything they can to figure out who they are or want to be at that moment. Students with the strongest convictions are always the most successful, as they don’t allow the distractions of material things or social acceptance to impede their own progress by ignoring the otherwise collective programs in the middle of Hofstede’s pyramid (2001) that are bookended by individualism demonstrated by what emerge as the best, most driven students with strong character traits and those with poor views on school and their own social worth, both sitting on the base of universal programs of which all students are aware, but ultimately choose to join or ignore.

             The advantage of teaching a non-core subject is that my classes are not limited by grade level, but only ability, so the lower ensemble may have students in their senior year that joined later or haven’t pursued their instrument with any enthusiasm, while the higher ensemble may have freshmen with great natural talent, or just a better work ethic and motivation to be successful than their older peers. Removing age from the equation allows the culture of my ensembles to be defined much differently and the results are much more applicable to adult society than what may be found in a classroom full of eleventh grade students that believe their status as upperclassmen absolves them from less desirable responsibilities like arriving to class on time or interacting with others in a respectful manner. The culture created by the individuals that suffer from what is sometimes known as “senior-itis” casts a bad shadow on what may be an otherwise intelligent and well behaved collection of young adults. Negative cultural stigmas that teachers are trained to accommodate, but truly can’t because they are perpetuated by outside forces like parents or the sensationalism of the media also prevent impressionable teenage minds from developing the appropriate character traits they will need to survive in the culture of the professional world. These issues are accurately described by Rokeach’s statement that “values determine behavior” (1973) and no more clearly can this be demonstrated than the interactions with students who find themselves arguing with teachers or administrators that things like school won’t matter because they’re going to play sports or be musicians and that somehow justifies their aberrant behavior of disrupting lessons and preventing other students from learning.

             Massey’s assessment that values tend to be formed in the beginning of life (1971) and the text’s declaration that most are solidified by age 21 speaks volumes to the responsibility and accountability I have as a teacher to influence students who may receive little or no direction at home. The gratification of helping a student turn themselves into a productive member of society is priceless, but is much less overwhelming than knowing you have made every effort to help a student that had the same potential, but wasn’t strong enough to resist outside factors that put them in a negative position from which they may never recover. Many students that do not achieve great levels of success in high school have accepted cultural values as their own (personal), while others still manage to participate in the culture, but retain their own personal values that provide them with unyielding direction. Those with stronger values suffer little affect from the ethnocentrism of their larger social groups and their ability to view things from different perspectives usually plays into how authentic they really are toward friends and teachers. Much of the infighting amongst an ethnocentric group is the result of egocentric individuals that need the group’s approval and followership, but can’t handle the rejection of their thoughts by others.

            While Individualism/Collectivism is only one of Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions (2001), the others have a less notable, but absolute definition throughout the school’s hallways. Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/Femininity, Long-Term/Short-Term Orientation and Indulgence/Restraint all also have very clear applications to a high school environment, but are subjected to such idiosyncrasies that can dissolve or overlap. Power Distance fluctuates, but the students who are clearly the most popular enjoy social privileges that are unattainable for someone without their level of influence and the group’s mass need for approval from these individuals. The highest levels of Uncertainty Avoidance are also found in the groups with the most influential students because opposition means social rejection for someone that may be not emotionally stable enough to handle such a public rebuffing. Traditional role definitions via Masculinity/Femininity are being challenged and redefined, but some cultures are not yet ready for staples like football and cheerleading to include the opposite sex. Current conditions have very little Long-Term Orientation outside the desire to graduate and a very Short-Term Oriented approach to each day, as most students can’t seem to live beyond the temporary, but seemingly devastating social consequences. Lastly, the Indulgence/Restraint dimension is seeing the side of restraint die an increasingly quicker death at the hands of the on-demand world by which technology has reduced overall problem-solving skill sets of high school students to little beyond using an internet search engine for answers to any question they generate between texting a friend in class or posting a picture of their lunch on any number of social media websites that are the driving force behind the erosion of conversation skills for anyone younger than 30 years old.

References:

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Massey, M. (1979). The People Puzzle: Understanding Yourself and Others. Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Co.

Redmond, Brian (2014) Lesson 1: Introduction to Leadership in a Global Context Penn State World Campus

Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: The Free Press.