An Unflattering Comparison
Yes, it’s been a while. It’s just too easy to push blogging to the back burner and too difficult to find something interesting to say. But one thing has been gnawing at me lately. Watch:
To my knowledge, these are the only two commercials that Sprint created as part of this ad campaign: airlines and schools, and how they could be improved if “people who know how to get things done” were to take over. So is this what it’s come to? We’re down there with the airlines, perhaps the most hated, bureaucratic, customer-unfriendly industry in America? Sad. If the commercial reflects the values and beliefs of its intended audience (and I’m sure it does – Madison Avenue spends a lot of money understanding those values and beliefs), then it looks like the image of schools held by the American public is one where students are left on their own, floating around the neighborhood, administrators and teachers either unaware or unconcerned by their absence. Inefficient. Bloated. Slow.
Who can do better? Apparently workers in a job whose minimum qualifications are pretty much limited to a drug screening a clean driving record.
Either we’re doing a really bad job at educating students or else at educating the public about what goes on in schools. Perhaps a little of both. Clearly, change is going to require changing a lot of people’s minds about what education is now and what it can become.
