to my former students who are now in their 20-somethings :- )

nudges

 

  

Though we can't always see it at the time,
if we look upon events with some perspective,
we see things always happen for our best interests.
We are always being guided in a way
better than we know ourselves.

~ Swami Satchidananda
Indian Author, Spiritual Teacher

"Rage against the dying light..."

It was the 10th week. It was customary and by-design, a documentary festival for all the courses I facilitate. The image is one of those "romantic" scenes I, a professor, have been given the privilege to experience. To be part of.

I recently taught Business Process Outsourcing, Food Service Management, Retail Management, Marketing Principles, Engineering Management Practices and Service Quality this past 3rd term at an ABET-accredited school - Mapua Institute of Technology.These courses are part of the core courses of an academic program called Service Engineering and Management.

I sat. Watched. Studied. Learned. And then, graded.

I saw more than 100 of 8-minute+ documentary films on the various service institutions in the Philippines. More than half of the work, really felt and looked like, in a bad way, student projects. I third, done with passion. And a few, transcendent gems. Gems that have raised the bar for how a documentary like this should look, sound and feel.

Over the course of five years, I have met, probably, over a thousand managers since I started requiring students to produce documentaries like these. I have seen how managers of bangketa restaurants and how managers of big corporations share similar challenges. Differing only in degree of scope. All aspire for better profits and all talked about providing better service and quality. The "how" the only creative difference.

But the most innovative solution I have encountered in solving a business situation and it is even more fascinating because this is a solution, for a queuing situation, did not come from a highly-paid manager in Makati or in Bonifacio Global City who owns a graduate degree. It came from a street hawk who runs a very popular eatery. His solution, slow it down. It was genius, because sales are still increasing and customers keep on coming back :- )

This cyclical 10-week experience also helped in concluding a hypothesis.

I have noticed that those who produce quality outputs are the Students and not those who only paid the tuition fees, the Enrolleds.

My experience over a decade has allowed me to decipher early, between, who are Students, thus needs to be given a different challenge so that they can be better, great and those who are Enrolleds who simply wants to stay the same, thus needs a different voice to challenge them. The voice called Hard Reality.

The objective of this "rage against the dying light" is to engage the students and challenge them to articulate in an obvious visual form what they got from the learning sessions. Another objective is that of a communal learning session, for a student work is seen by fellow students. This approach has its own disadvantages but, I think, its distinct advantage that outweighs its disadvantages is the fact that the student work is not only limited to the eyes of the professor. But its value, no matter how small, has been multiplied.

In behalf of the the future Service Engineering and Management students, we would like to thank Ms. Cabral, Mr. Caguiat, Mr. de Ocampo, Ms. Casino and Mr. Adrid for showing how documentaries under Sir Fants should be done.

And as a personal note, thank you for "raging against the dying light.."

"... why think like mere men."