Being Boeing

A blog post recently caught my eye over on the Chronic.  The blogger was quite excited about an editorial written by a couple of guys at Boeing about their in house training courses.  Apparently, Boeing does quite a lot of teaching, so they had been invited to write an editorial in an education journal about how engineers would design a curriculum.  I was interested by the idea of employers investing in the job training of their employees, rather than expecting universities to do it for them.  So, somewhat against my better judgement, I looked up the article.

It was, of course, gobbledygook.  Some flava:

Our Santa Fe Institute and SRI Inc. research is attempting to model educational subsystem behaviors through the lens of complex adaptive systems to better conceptualize the current educational ecosystem. Therefore, we plan on identifying methods to model the larger system. A deep understanding of this structure (exponential complexity encountered as knowledge is distributed through the organization) is required in order to transcend subcultural boundaries and meld a unified framework. From this might emerge a fresh composite that values different cultural and situational perspectives. Complex systems display many counterintuitive components and, upon reflection, an intricate interdependence make many things visible.

Oh Baby! Bodacious Buzzwords Burble from Boeing's Blastopore!  I love it when you talk nerdy!  Gluttons for punishment can find the whole thing here.

A couple of things occur to me.  First, the next time an engineer tries to tell you that engineers have to design things that really work, and so they never waste time with fluffy bullshit, show them this article and say "Come again?"

Second, it doesn't really seem to fit:

Boeing trains employees - it presumably pays its students
to attend courses. 

Universities charge students to attend, and are often
dependent on that tuition revenue.

Boeing presumably fires (or demotes) its students if they
don't do the work, study, and eventually pass.

Universities have often been criticized (not unjustifiably)
for not holding students to account, focusing on retention
at the expense of academic standards.

Boeing hires (or promotes) its students on graduation - if Boeing
doesn't have a job to fill, they probably don't expend the
resources to train the student.

Universities are expected to turn out more and more students regardless
of whether there are jobs for them to do on graduation.

Boeing's mission, doubtless a complex one, is to build functioning airplanes
This is specific enough that they can gear their curriculum to the jobs
they need the students to perform

Universities' mission is to disseminate knowledge and understanding
to society in general, and has little ability to foresee what
knowledge students might need in their futures.

But nevertheless, this is the kind of thing adminflakes might get quiet excited about because (a) Boeing is a big company with a lot of money, and (b) airplanes are cool!   After all, if a big rich company can deliver a curriculum, then surely all universities have to do is imitate Boeing!  Or rather all adminflakes have to do  issue a proclamation that the proffies should "be like Boeing!"