I just read a fascinating article about fraud and how people say they are qualified, can even show "paperwork" to prove it, but have zero skills in the area they claim to be qualified in. This reminds me of a recent Facebook thread where a "friend", who teaches English at a junior college, was complaining that her daughter's pre-school teacher's memo home to parents was rife with spelling and grammatical errors. The ensuing thread of comments was a rant about how teachers - on the whole - could not spell, how did they ever make it through school and how were they remotely qualified to teach our children? It was a rather spiteful "conversation", one that, as a teacher, made me cringe.
The magazine article, to which I referred, was about marine surveys, the necessity of a survey when buying a used boat and the need to hire a reputable marine surveyor. Marine surveying is one segment of the economy that does not require certification, licenses, or competency exams. Anyone can become a professional marine surveyor with a business card and a cell phone.
Anyone of us can probably recall someone who professed to be qualified for a particular task or position - maybe even possessed the necessary paperwork - and, after observing repeated outcomes that were less-than-spectacular or were outright crash-and-burns, made us wonder "how did she or he ever get that job?"
For all I know someone wondered that about me at some point in my life. It is possible to reach our "Peter Principle" sooner than later and, perhaps, have never been suited for the job in the first place. In one of my early-life teaching positions, the young man who had been hired to take over one of my elementary schools because I had too many students, came and shadowed me for a day, in order to make the transition as smooth as possible for the students. I quickly discovered that he could not carry a tune to save his life and I wondered just how successful he would be teaching melodies to children?
How, you many wonder, did he get the job? Well, he had the piece of paper stating that he was trained and, therefore qualified.......but it did not hurt that his mother was the secretary to the superintendent of schools. However, the unasked question should loom large, much like the elephant in the room: How can colleges and universities matriculate and graduate students who display such a lack of skills and basic competency? If this were an isolated example I would not raise the question.
Perhaps the bar is set a bit too low.
Ancora imparo
