DEI – Improvement Dave

I want to share that I have lived a full life. I have sucked the sweet marrow out of life and lived life to the fullest. I should have died multiple times but I did not die, and for that I am thankful. I love that I am alive.

Thanksgiving

This is a big holiday in the United States. It had never been my favorite. The staples are glutinous action and binging American football. Oh, and we pretend that we did not euthanize the native Americans. These are not things I hold close to my heart. Give me Halloween and Christmas all day long, but I can leave Thanksgiving at the dinner table.

When the Puritans and the first white people landed in the American nation we had basically no plan. I say “we” here because I am German/Hungarian and therefore caucasian, but I do not adhere to any of the Puritan doctrines. (Idealistic Christian beliefs that included spreading hate and fear of those who who ar not white and heterosexual.)

The first white people in the Americas were lost and afraid. They probably ate corn and some deer with the Native Americans in a desperate attempt to stay alive. This has evolved into a gluttonous feast around pumpkin pie, sugared cranberry, and Turkey. I mean, Turkey is a superfood so I am totally on board with that part, regardless of the historical inaccuracy.

In fact, we had such a poor plan that the first white British colony resorted to cannibalism just to survive. and then there is the fact that we wiped most of the Native Americans off the face of the earth. Not no real reason to celebrate in my book. In spite of all of this, I am still happy and I am still grateful.

If you disagree you should listen to this masterpiece by Avery Trufelman

https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/30/18644531/nice-try-curbed-podcast-jamestown

I am Grateful because IT IS THE WAY

Thankfulness is a buzzword. Let’s just call it what it is. At this point, it is a painful offshoot of the frenzy of consumism by the most successful capitalist society of all time. But the US needs to watch out because China is closing in on us for such a prize.

That is not what I mean in this post. I am talking about being grateful for the benefits of gratitude. Now there is plenty of research on how this act of being thankful decreases the stress hormone cortisol, and I am an avid listener of the 10% Happier Podcast, but I am going to fall back on Headspace in my content curation here because Headspace is the BOMB.com. If you are not using Headspace then where have you been!? You need to get on that, BOSS!

What is one thing you are thankful for today!? Be mindful of being thankful for what is good. The delight will overwhelm you and the fact that we have systematically disenfranchised the women and people of colour in this world will start to matter less. Or at least, they will not overwhelm you with guilt as they tend to do for me on this dreadful holiday of denial of history.

Move Forward

I got dark here. I got a bit too real for some. If this is too real you need to grow a pair (testicles or ovaries, however, you identify.) If you live a life of privilege you need to own that shit and live up to it. You need to capitalize on that shit so that you can empower those who have been disenfranchised by the very systems that empower you.

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect towards others.”
The Dalai Lama

What we can learn about learning from the Barbie Movie.

Writing prompt courtesy of Betty Dannewitz.

Pink Barbie logo on the big TV screen with neon colorful background on wall. Dark room in home with TV screen playing Barbie trailer or movie. Realistic vector illustration. NY, NY-USA – July 9 2023 – Adobe Stock

Accessibility

The Barbie movie is accessible to all viewers. It is both a Hollywood eye-candy musical and a deep tragic world art film at the same time. It lives in both worlds simultaneously. In the same way, good training is accessible to all learners and offers differentiated content for both advanced and novice learners.

Accessibility is a bit of a buzzword in the Training and Development industry right now, but it is something we should have been talking about from the beginning and it is not something that will go away. Humans are all very unique and a one-size-fits-all was never the right choice and moving away from that approach has countless benefits.

The real way to do Accessibility is before design or development starts. Accessibility is not only adding a PDF transcript to be available with a video, it is about designing learning content to be easily consumed by a variety of learners right from the beginning. If you develop content that works for the visually and hearing impaired using simple language that we all can understand then it benefits us all. The content is easier to understand and we have more than one way to get the information into our psyche. Not only does this decrease concerns around Cognitive Load and Cognitive Overload but also offers the benefits of content repetition by consuming the content in multiple modalities.

Change is Difficult

Classic Barbie (Margot Robbie) slowly develops as a character and realizes her worldview is a facade. She is terrified and must learn that it is OK to feel not OK. The movie does not go out of its way to make Barbie look great. At the end of the day what we get is an honest portrayal of not only how children view the Barbie world but also how that can cause problems as we mature and enter the real world. Learning is hard. In fact, learning can hurt. It is not fun to admit you don’t know something. It is uncomfortable to change but in the end, it is usually best.

Buenos Aires, Argentina; 08-03-2023: Barbie the movie. Thematic horizontal background of a woman’s hands holding a cell phone that represents the success and fury for the Barbie movie. -Adobe Stock

Think back to a time when you failed at something. Think about a time when you didn’t make the grade. When you thought you had it all figured out and then when you stepped up you didn’t know what to do next. Maybe it was with a stranger on a bus where you missed the beat and offended them. Maybe it was with your significant other. Maybe it was with your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. Maybe it was at work. Maybe it was something you tried to patch up with your children and failed. We have all been there, and if you haven’t been there then you are telling yourself lies.

“To err is human; to forgive, divine,” is the famous phrase from An Essay on Criticism BY ALEXANDER POPE. We all make mistakes babe, It’s OK. Forgive yourself and find a way to move onto a better path. This is how we take a step closer to clarity, to actually understanding the universe.

Own the Fail, Gain Credibility

The Barbie movie has a high E.Q. (Emotional Quotient.) The film is transparent as well as aware of its own brand. (Not unlike The LEGO Movie (2014).) These new “META” or self-aware type of brand-based movies embrace the failures of their past.

Tambov, Russian Federation – February 24, 2019 Lego Hard Hat Emmet and Lucy minifigures against Apocalypseburg background. The Lego Movie 2. – Adobe Stock

The pregnant Midge, Allan the “non-Ken”, the absolute pain of stepping on a LEGO block with bare feet; the potential sexist views of past products are not swept under the rug and ignored, they are discussed and explored. The fact that Barbie has not cured sexism and defeated the patriarchy is a core theme of the film. In the same way, we build credibility with our learners by owning our mistakes. Talking about misinformation we have provided our class in the name of clearly communicating the truth.

I trained people at a call center for a few years. I would train night classes of 30 to 40 people at a time for 3-week training cohorts plus a week of hands-on application. That is 120 hours of class time per class for a month. I was training people on the credit industry and how to use a proprietary data entry platform that was designed and developed by our employer.

Laws change, banks change their terms, and computer programs get updated. I had to live in a constant state of acceptance if I wanted my learners to trust me. I had to say things like, “Oh, thank you for clarifying that.” and “That is not how that worked last month.” Stay in the flow, and keep things real, people like that. If you are rigid in your knowledge and do not accept change easily people will learn that you recall things incorrectly because you can not update your perspective.

Cali, Colombia – June 6, 2023: “Barbie” movie on TV screen behind a bowl of popcorn and a remote control.
– Adobe Stock

This is all about modeling our instruction as a mirror against reality. When Barbie (and in fact Mattel) own their mistakes transparently, they are creating a platform that transcends where we were, where we are, and generates a vision or maybe even inspires us to dream of where we could be… A world of true equity.

Am I Kenough to Change You?

Improvement Dave dressed as Ken while his daughter watches him pretend he can wail on guitar. – Dave’s iPhone Mini

The fact that the movie was banned in Kuwait and Lebanon for promoting feminism shows that we have some room to grow as a species.

South Korea ranks last in gender equality among OECD countries. Even the president himself, Yoon Suk Yeol, defined feminism as a movement “that wants to criminalize men”.

Just some ideas, they might not be Kenough to change your worldview if you disagree.

The LEGO movie did not contain the word “LEGO.”

Tag: DEI

Grateful to be Alive