Distance Education as Tool for Sustainable Development: A Point of View from the Fifth Discipline *
Felix Librero
Introduction
I find the theme of this regional seminar tricky, even innocuous. It sounds so very simple and straight forward but the more you think about it the more you get sucked into an endless debate with yourself whether or not it is appropriate to really look at both distance and open learning as tools for sustainable development, or perhaps even be part of the problem itself. As a way out of this quagmire, I have decided to look at the issue from the point of view of the Fifth Discipline, that is, from the point of view of systems thinking in the field of management.
To begin with, I would like to explain where I am coming from and put to context my discussion of the theme and issues involved therein. In 1990, a book considered by Harvard Business Review as one of the five most influential books on management during the last decade of the last century was published. Its title is The Fifth Discipline (the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization). It was written by Peter M. Senge. Before we explain what the Fifth Discipline is, we need to mention first the four other disciplines called core disciplines. As this paper is not supposed to dwell deep into these core disciplines, let us just provide brief descriptions of what they are.
Personal mastery , according to Senge, is considered a discipline when we do two things: continually clarify what is important to us, and continually learn how to see current reality more clearly.
Mental models refer to simple generalizations such as “people are untrustworthy,” or they can be complex theories, such as my assumptions about why members of my family interact as they do. Mental models are active – they shape how we act. If we believe that distance education is not good enough as an educational delivery mechanism, we act differently from the way we would if we believed it is an excellent alternative delivery system. Mental models affect what we do because they affect what we see. Two people may be looking at the same physical object but see different things because they think differently or are thinking of two different things in relation to the physical object.
Shared vision is not simply an idea, but a force in people's hearts, a force of impressive power. It may be inspired by an idea which has become so compelling that it would acquire support of more than one individual. The idea is no longer mere abstraction, but has become “real” that it exists. Shared vision may well be the most powerful in human affairs. In its simplest form, shared vision answers the question “what do we want to create?” These are mental pictures that people throughout the organization carry in their minds and hearts. Where these pictures are the same in the minds and hearts of all the people in the organization they have a shared vision.
Team learning refers to the process of “aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members truly desire.” It builds on the discipline of developing shared vision and personal mastery.
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*Paper presented at the International Seminar on Open and Distance Learning for Sustainable Development, Universitas Terbuka, Jakarta , Indonesia , 2 September 2004.
