SLQOTD’s Blog Project asks: “How does SL change the lrnr’s accountability to learn? How can an org encourage lrnr acctblity?”
WARNING:
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When was it ever NOT the learner’s accountability to learn? When did someone (or something) take that over? My answer? NEVER.
photo credit: That Erum Kid.
CASE IN POINT: Schools – public or private, it doesn’t matter. Who is accountable to make sure that the child learns? It is the parent. (Technically, it is at first and then it slowly switches to the child as they gain more maturity, but that is another post in and of itself.) Most parents automatically hand over the responsibility to learn to the schools. Yet the accountability never changes – it stays with the parent. But in transfering the responsibility to the schools, they feel they have transfered the accountability as well. Then, when their child does not get the education they think they deserve, or the school ‘does them wrong,’ the parents blame the school for their child’s lack of education
Over time, the schools have taken on this fake sense of accountability.
I call this the “Subsumption of Accountability.” This is when the accountability to do something (in this case, learn) is placed incorrectly on the wrong person or group. Or when that person or group incorrectly takes on the characteristics of accountability from someone. They don’t actually take FULL accountability, but it seems as if they do. But in the end, who suffers when accountability fails? Not the person who has subsumed it, but the person to which it rightfully belongs.
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Did you follow that? I have a book I have started to write on that because it is one of my passions. So I may have totally lost some people because I glazed over a topic that goes WAY deeper, but I hope it makes sense.
Back to the original question – how does social learning change the accountability for the learner to learn? It doesn’t. It may change the responsibility in that they don’t assign it out to the company and instead take it themselves, but it does not change the accountability.
And this is the point we need to drive home. Sometimes an organization subsumes the learner’s accountability to learn, weakening the learner’s accountability, drive and passion and full responsibility. So what do we do? Give it back. Stop taking it. Allow the learner to take charge and understand that THEY are in charge of their learning. Fully.
