A Businessman Hooked on Education

Posted by Ian Sole on August 24, 2010 0 Comments

I was born in London, England, to parents of the depression era, with the values most associated with that time period, austerity and hard work, framing much of my upbringing. My father had left school at age 14, his parents unable to afford a higher education and worked his way through various apprenticeships in the printing industry (even running the army’s printing press in Alexandria, Egypt during the war) and spending the last 25 years of his career as a teacher of print. My mother was trained as a seamstress but became a “home-maker” soon after my older brother was born in 1952. We were raised in what was then at least a very traditional family with very stereotypical roles played by mother and father, and where a child was expected to know his or her place!

At the dinner table we were normally expected to be quiet and listen to whatever Dad had to say, which was often on the subject of education. While proud of the fact that he was a self-taught man, he clearly recognized the advantages of a formal education, and a well developed mind. He would quiz my brother and I constantly on various subjects, with an emphasis on history, geography and math…………although in the latter it was limited to mental arithmetic challenges which he deemed a crucial life skill. He would argue that these new slide rules and calculators had ruined students’ ability to “know” if a number was right or wrong. They had become dependent on the machine. Like on so many other things, I would argue with him, only to experience the very same thing over and over again in my business and personal life and realize how right he was. Sadly, we can send men to the moon but lack the skill to count in our heads.

Another early conversation with Dad cemented my love of history and of learning in general. Like any young boy I was big into World War 2, and read avidly about the battles, and about the military and political leaders of those incredible years. As a result, an early hero of mine became Winston Churchill. Here was a man who through his strength of character, mastery of the English language and personal bravery had not only saved Great Britain from the tyranny of Hitler and fascism, but had saved the world…………..with a little help from our friends in the USA of course! How then could such a great leader have been voted out of office no sooner than the war was won? I just didn’t understand until I asked my Dad. “Churchill was associated with war all his life” he said.”People were tired of war, they wanted peace”. It was a simple, yet powerful lesson on a well considered evaluation of the facts, or higher level thinking, and one that I never forgot.

One more lesson that was drummed into us by my father had to do with the importance of being able to write a good letter, one that was well constructed, and of course grammatically correct. The best practice came immediately following Christmas when “thank you” letters had to be written to every gift giver, with some given highest prominence and requiring several attempts before it passed muster. It was not exactly a fun way to spend a day or two of winter break, but once again it embedded in me lessons that held me in good stead as I progressed through my own career.

I recently retired after 30 successful years as a Sales and Marketing professional for some of the country’s largest and best known brands, including Fisher Price Toys where I was VP Marketing, and Hamilton-Beach Proctor Silex, where I was VP International and got to experience my love of geography first hand when I travelled to over 40 countries in the space of just 2 years. I have since reflected on how my own education has helped my career and how in turn I may have helped others. For one thing, while I studied and gained a good degree in Economics (with a minor in history), I recognize that it was the critical thinking and communication skills that have helped me the most, and in turn what I attempted to build in my own staff and employees throughout my career. Over the years I have frankly been astounded by the lack of these skills in so many young (and older) candidates seeking positions or promotions at one or other of the companies in which I worked, and even more unsettling was the fact that this phenomenon was getting worse. Somewhere along the way we have lost touch with the necessity of teaching these critical thinking and communication skills, which every company worth its salt should expect from its employees. This is why I became so interested and excited when I came across Performance-Education and learned about their whole approach to learning; the importance given to developing critical thinking and problem solving skills; their focus on reading and literacy, their philosophy of developing a students’ ability to work in teams, and the need to develop all forms of communication skills. As a businessman, I know full well that way beyond SAT scores or even GPA averages these are the skills all companies are desperate to find. And when I discovered that their materials were focused on social studies, I was totally hooked. I had found my nirvana, an opportunity to combine my 3 favorite passions –education, social studies, and business.

As a father of 4, I now sit on my sons PTO, and for the past 2 years have been an executive member of our county Parent Council whose mission is to serve as a forum for parents, educators, and school administrators to share ideas and exchange information in order to further advance the quality of the education system in our county. It’s a great opportunity to see and hear first-hand about some of the great new ideas that are being presented to address some of the shortfalls mentioned above, but also to realize how far we still have to go to develop a whole generation of global thinking, problem solvers that our nation sorely needs.