COMMENTS ABOUT OTHER`S BLOGS

THIS WEEK I COMMENT IN 5 BLOGS:

1. ALVEAR ANGEL ANDREA STEFANY

2. ARRAZOLA CHADID NICOLAS JOSE

3. ESPINOSA LÓPEZ JULIANA

4. PACHON SANCHEZ ESTEBAN

5. SALDARRIAGA GOMEZ MANUELA

THE PYGMALION EFFECT IN THE COLOMBIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Traditionally the educational system in Colombia has been something that wasn’t accessible to all the population due economic, geographic or ethnic reasons; usually the education was headed to medium-high to high classes and was based in the Roman Catholic tradition; in addition the educational system didn’t offer any kind of motivation or support to its students on the contrary was a coercive system that instead of having high expectations on its students always prevent them to develop its abilities in order to make them fit in a system that was looking to create a big labor force. Also the corruption in the political class in the country hampered the development of the educational system for years.

All that creates among the common Colombian a feeling of inferiority and tendency to think that they aren’t good enough to compete with people who has had traditionally more access to luxuries and education; besides that the roman catholic tradition raise a lot of generations with perception of towards the poorness and to the conformism teaching to their followers that everyone has to continue through the path that God put on their lives and if they were supposed to be poor and ignorant that’s the way that they should live.

Now at days the things have changed a lot, the country is secular and step by step the corruption in the educational system had decreased; public and private entities are changing the traditional way of thinking of the students trying to help them to reach higher goals based on high expectations despite of their economic, geographic or ethnic conditions; finally the teachers and the society are accepting that a motivated person in which the people of its immediate environment believes in, can be better than everyone expected.

A great example of this is how SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje) supports thousands of people that haven’t end high school to join the educational system by putting greater expectation upon them, increasing their productivity and their input to the society. All this not only by giving them a technical title but also making them feel useful and helpful.

On the private sector universities like EAFIT wants to take the traditional point of view of the educational system that was created to develop labor force, and transform it in to a developer of entrepreneurs that would help the country to progress and would generate jobs to the people that are qualifying themselves in the technical knowledge; all this through a group of professors that encourages the creation of ideas and the belief that high expectations on well educated people would lead to great progress.

We can see how the educational system and specially the expectations that a group of professors and directives have on a generation of students can shape the direction of the development of those human beings and with it the progress of a whole country.



The SENA HYMN ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW THIS PUBLIC ENTITY ENCOURAGES ITS STUDENTS

References:

www.sena.edu.co/

"Dealing with Cultural Differences" by Nick B. Meyer, Question Analisys

Individualism (IDV) on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word 'collectivism' in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world (http://www.geert-hofstede.com/).

Taking into account that the Americans are the ones with higher individualism and Guatemalans are the ones with less individualism a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from a United States` company in Guatemala can be very difficult if it’s not well managed.

If a company like Chiquita Brands wants to invest in Guatemala to cultivate their fruits, once they get there, they will need a big extension of land that would probably be full of families that have lived there for several generations as a prosper community. Thanks to their collectivism is highly probable that the Guatemalan families won`t accept a monetary deal whit Chiquita Brand thanks to the attachment that they have to each other. For this reason there`s a lot of chance that Chiquita Brands tries to get the land at any mean possible.

Due the American individualism the shareholders of the company would probably take care only of their profits instead of the wellbeing of an entire community (Check this article to know more about Chiquita Brands in Colombia http://www.pasc.ca/spip.php?article161) and try to use a lot of deceive tactics as corruption, violence or deals with irregular groups just to get what they want.

In conclusion a clash between this kind of societies if is not well managed could lead to a disaster because neither of the parts would be willing to accept the other proposal unless they try to set a common ground in which they can try to work and get a Win-Win Situation.

This Video Is a Short Reminder of what a Foreign Company can do if does not study and tries to understand another culture

Refence:

Nick B. Meyer Conference
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/