Learning from Others’ Mistakes
It is often said that we don’t learn from the mistakes of others; we must make their own mistakes. Yet, it is also often said that the importance of studying history is so that we don’t repeat the mistakes (that others made) of history. So, which is it?
Increasingly, I
think it is the former, that people don’t learn from the mistakes of others. Is
it that they don’t pay attention? That they think they are smarter; that it
won’t happen to them? They can’t/don’t
see themselves in those “others?”
Whatever Read more
Too Big to Succeed
People tend to look for the easy answers. For example, I’m asked all of the time, “How long should an executive director stay in her/his position?” Simple question to ask; complex question to answer, as it isn’t a functions of years (the answer folks are looking for), but rather a function of the person’s actual performance of the job, the continued interest in doing the job and the interest in, and willingness to, push the envelope in order to be the best possible and not Read more
Let’s hear it for the girls
How’s this for a depressing headline: “Women in PA won’t get equal pay until 2072?”* When I officially entered the workforce, women were making 56.6% of what men earned, the lowest it had been in the preceding 13 years. As of 2013, that differential is up to 78.3%. Progress, granted, although not always steady. The fact that it will have taken a full 100 years plus nine for the first equal pay act—The Equal Pay Act of 1963—to achieve reality is beyond sad. And it Read more
Wrongful Death
I read with great sadness about the death of Hull House in Chicago, after 122 years. If you studied sociology, women’s studies, social justice, social work, or any related field, you quickly came to learn of Jane Addams and Hull House, which she co-founded with Ellen Gates Starr), and the legacy that each gave to this country. (Although little was ever mentioned of Hull House’s co-founder).
To most, I am sure, this is merely the closing of yet another nonprofit. Big deal. To others, however, this Read more
March 9th, 2012 0 Comment 