INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
By Roger Bartholomew

Roger Bartholomew spends his life talking with students - both as a teacher and as a counselor. His position as president of International Education Specialists, Chairman of Southville Foreign University and Director/Teacher at Southville International School all involve listening to students and parents and advising them on their studies and careers. He is a frequent speaker in schools, colleges, universities, public forums and focus groups. He can be reached at rogerb@inter-ed.com.

MAXIMIZING WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE! ALIGNING WHO YOU ARE WITH WHAT YOU DO BOTH LOCALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY FOR THE BEST CAREER RESULTS

So much that is written concerning education and academics either seems dull, scholarly, with little practical application, or worst of all, all three! The articles are interspersed with quotations from people you have never heard of, going all the way back to Sophocles, and who you are expected to know and understand. Not this one! I would like to start off by telling a story and you have my permission to download this and give it to the principal of your child’s school (or your own)! Bruce Bugbee from his book “What you do best in the body of Christ”, deserves the credit for this wonderful story, however, I have taken some liberties with the story so that it fits neatly with my topic of career alignment.

Not long after the age of the dinosaurs, or so “Ice Age 3” would have us believe, the animals that we know today roamed the earth. Before long they decided to start a school. There were five core subjects in the curriculum: running, swimming, flying, jumping and climbing. The Duck was easily the best swimmer when school started, and was also quite good at flying, but really struggled at running. In fact the duck struggled so badly that he had to stay after school nearly every day to practice. But he didn’t get much faster and all the practicing blistered his feet so that even his swimming was affected – so much so that in his semester report he only received an “Average” for swimming, which did not seem to bother anyone, except the duck.

The Hare was the school champion in running, but other than tree climbing where his speed usually got him half way up, the hare could do little else. In fact he was so afraid of the swimming classes that he developed a nervous tic whenever his hind leg went in the water. Most of his running skills were devoted to getting away as quickly as possible from the lessons he did not like.

The Squirrel tried hard. Tree climbing was no problem, but flying did not come easily. He had heard of relatives who could glide from tree to tree, but hard as he tried he could not do it. His body was so bruised from falling, and he ached all over so badly, that even his tree climbing dropped to a ‘below average” grade.

Jumping for the Kangaroo was fun; higher, faster, so that he could even catch up with the runners. Sometimes it even felt like flying when he jumped off a hillock. He volunteered to start a boxing club to use his other limbs, but the school said it was just a way to avoid the swimming and climbing classes. Hare and kangaroo quickly became friends and frequently schemed how to make school more bearable. As a result of this kangaroo was suspected of concealing school property on his person, by tucking it into his pouch.

Eagle was labeled a non-conformist. Whenever there were climbing classes eagle always got to the top of the tree first, but using his “own method”, not the one prescribed by the school. Although he always could better his teacher’s time, his grade was always marked, “unsatisfactory”. Many people thought that eagle would help squirrel learn how to fly, but eagle remained aloof and rarely mixed with other students.

Graduation was a gloomy affair despite the fact that all of the animals had found jobs with Forest Inc. (yes, there was full employment in those days before the Great Crash of 3,842BC) but none were looking forward to them. Duck’s job was to run between the office and the woodshed delivering timber stock reports; kangeroo’s job was to count the fruit and acorns at the top of the trees to predict the food supply; squirrel’s job was to move from hillock to hillock as quickly as possible with a clipboard to see where the other animals were moving to and record it – and he hated being in the grass; eagle’s job was to see how many beavers there were in the water and keep track of the dams they were building (it was noticed that he was frequently absent); and Hare’s job was to overseas everything that was going on.
Regrettably after a few month, Forest Inc. went out of business due to poor productivity, triggering the Great Crash of 3,842BC……… does this sound familiar?

After the Great Crash, Wise Owl became the new school principal, and started a time of fulfillment and prosperity with a talk entitled, “Peak Performance – how to get the forest animals to perform at their best”. He even set up a post-school skills department to help the animals become complete experts at what they were good at. When interviewed and asked how he came up with such great ideas, he said really there were four things:

1. I listened to my students
2. I watched my students to see what they could do best
3. I talked with Forest 2 Inc. (the new company started with an economic stimulus package!) to see what positions they had available for my students and what skills the company really needed from people holding those positions.
4. I attended the “Career Counseling 101 Workshop for Parents and Teachers” to listen to people who really knew what they were talking about and implement their ideas. 

 Do I need to state the obvious or can I leave it in your capable hands to work it out? Let me make a few comments:
There is an obvious inference that the animals had personalities, passion and preferences with their abilities, as well as the innate talents they were born with;

There is a need to listen to and watch your children to know who they are, what they are good at and what they like doing – and what they hate! Chatting with them, playing with them, watching them interact with friends, asking their opinion, challenging them to push the envelope, supporting them when they fail, encouraging them when they succeed, treating them as precious individuals, are all just part of knowing who your children are;

Share this knowledge with their school so that the school does not try to fit a round peg into a square hole. The abilities need to be taken as far as they can go, the inabilities coached to survival level. The school needs your help to do this well, and you need to know your child well to pass on the right information;

Once students start working, career positions need to be in areas where they excel and have interest and passion, and ideally suit their personality. Otherwise, peak performance will not be achieved and either the students or the company will fail.

Remember Squirrel, Duck,Eagle, Hare and Kangaroo. If Squirrel had counted the fruit, if Duck had watched the beavers, if Kangaroo had moved around recording the movement of the animals, if Hare had delivered the reports at high speed and if Eagle had overseen everything from on high, the company would have done fine. But even that is in doubt as the schooling that each animal had received had completely removed their self-confidence and levels of achievement even in those areas where they naturally excelled to a point where the passion and desire for great accomplishment had been driven out of them. As a parent and a teacher, watch carefully over your child and their schooling. Their future depends on it.

Finally, how do we learn how to do all this? The “Career Counseling 101 for Parents and Teachers” will be held on Thursday, September 17th from 1.00 – 4.00pm at the SMX Mall of Asia Complex. Speakers and workshop facilitators will be Roger Bartholomew, President of International Education Specialists and Dr. Joyce Uy, a pre-eminent Educational counselor from University of Asia and the Pacific and a Vice-President of the Career Development Association of the Philippines (CDAP). A simple phone call to 819-1001 or email to intl_edu_specialists@pldtdsl.net will put your name on the list and reserve you a seat for this highly interesting, informative and vital seminar/workshop which will give you all that you need to ensure that your Hare, Squirrel, Duck, Kangaroo or Eagle are guided in the right direction. Group bookings by Parent/Teacher Associations (PTA) are welcome.