Planning counts! This is a very important lesson for gifted and talented students to learn. Most of our students feel very capable and able to accomplish most anything they set out to do. They are so sure of their abilities, often no planning is done in advance. This leads to a stressful situation or to a disaster. Yet, time and time again, I see students try to pull off large and important tasks without any planning on their part.
Perhaps one of the reasons for so much consternation in our world today is that planning isn’t receiving the attention it once did. I’ve been amazed at the apparent lack of planning in some of our favorite restaurants. How could a manager forget to order cups for the popular drinks in our drive in that offers discounted drinks which bring in hordes of people each and every day? How can a restaurant offer a popular seasonal entre but forget to order the dressing particular to that item? Lately, it seems to be quite easy. Yes, supply issues are in the news daily…lack of drivers to get the supplies here…lack of raw materials to make the items, etc.
Yet, I think a check back through the last year would show that poor planning was the original fault. We found that to be the case with the lack of testing sites and personnel for getting bus drivers certified. It is as though people ignored the increasing population and rocked along doing business as usual. Not many people have recognized that we are no longer pacing ourselves along a norm curve…but rather, technology has thrust us into an age of the “J” curve of exponential growth.
I remember when we first introduced computers into the state Department of Education. We met to decide what information we could possibly put into these machines that would make life easier for everyone. We were promised that computers would cut our paperwork down to a small fraction of what we were doing at the time. Ha! In the first two years, I watched our yearly audits and governmental paperwork take up twice as much space in our storeroom as anything before. It should have been a warning to us all!
Today, we are reading that electric cars and trucks are the new wave and production is starting immediately. Yet, I have not read about how we are going to handle the problem of pollution from the batteries that will be expended by these vehicles. Has any planning been done to prevent vast problems which will arise very shortly?
I grew up hearing the story about the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the hole in a huge dyke which had sprung a leak. All I remember is the instant solution. Did he stay there forever? Did the hole grow larger? I don’t ever remember hearing a final solution. Today, the problems don’t seem to be quite so simple. We have come to a time when everything seems to be interwoven to the point that isolated incidents just don’t seem to be the case. Yet, we do see many brave, daring, and quick-thinking people react and respond in emergencies.
If we can teach our students and us to do better planning, maybe such acts of heroism will not be necessary. We need to look at things with attention paid to what good can happen as a result, as well as what bad results can happen. Then, we can start planning for the needs to be met before they arise. Kay