Stability and Change in Our Environment, Organizations, and Individual Lives (Part 1)
Over the past few months I have posted drafts of different sections of the book on technology integration in Silicon Valley schools that I have been working on since the beginning of this year. These two posts comes from my final chapter on stability and change in our lives and schools.
Over the past millions of years (not a typo, millions) Earth’s polar ice caps extended into equatorial South America, Africa, and Asia. Over time, these ice-bound regions receded and moderate to tropical climate in non-polar regions returned. Using the time scale of millions of years, there has been much continuity and change in climate on Earth.
Human organizations do not have that enormous time span but one in particular, the Roman Catholic Church, has existed for almost two thousand years. Within the Church, sects have arisen and broken away (e.g., the Protestant Reformation). Other groups protesting Church rules have formed and, over time, have become incorporated into the Church. Over the last millennium, Popes banished heretics, sponsored Crusades, survived the break away of German and English Catholics to form Lutheran and Anglican churches in the 16th century, and continue to oversee the lives of over a billion Catholics across the globe. In almost two thousand years, the Church has had long periods of stability punctuated by both swift and slow-motion years of change.
And in a single lifetime of 70-plus years for individual human beings, constancy and change mark one’s personality and character as a person moves from infancy to childhood, adolescence, becoming an adult, and then into old age.
Using different time scales, continuity and change characterize the environment we live in, the organizations that influence our lives, and what individuals experience in their life span of eight to nine decades. From millions of years to millennia to decades, stability and change are abiding partners.
Climate change. While there are nay-sayers that global climate has not changed significantly beyond the usual cyclical trends that have characterized weather Stability and Change in Our Environment, Organizations, and Individual Lives (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:
