勁 翔 re-posted on In Media a fable on Education Reform (Chinese) that he wrote about a year and a half ago.  Seems like the coporate self improvement/destruction movement has invaded our education system some time ago.  Dilbert (school edition) will come soon...

(English translation here)

Last week, Professor Arthur Li announced the $550 million Fool-based Professional Support (FoBPS) Programmes collaborating school principals, teachers, and specialist groups comprising professors from local universities.  The initiative is aimed at providing "professional support tailored to schools’ identified needs" for a period of 3 years on addressing the workload issues due from the Education Reform.  How I wish that Screwy could be a member of the team, recommending his innovative proposal of resolution...

Screwy, a primary school student, was one of those John Does who wouldn't be noticed by any teacher even if he were absent from all classes.  Screwy's parents were senior members of the Education & Madpower Bureau (EMadB).  Both were very busy people with little time and resources for Screwy.  They banked all their trust on the home administrative assistant (a.k.a. the maid) for the well-being of Screwy.

One day, out of the blue, Screwy's parents realised that they could actually leverage on Fool-based Management (FoBM) to improve the communication with their son.  After all, a child's well-being is heavily dependent on the quality of communication and concern from parents.

They even imagined that at the end of the process, a workshop with fanfares and fireworks (viva, yet another PowerPoint show!) could be held with the press to demonstrate that FoBM is not (really) such a foolish idea.  In fact, the principles of FoBM could be extended to the realm of parent-child relationship management.  Their minds were filled with images of the bright future and giggles on their faces.  They started to devise what PowerPoint background graphics should be used for best visual impact.  Most importantly, they started to figure out a larger-than-life acronym for this initiative with their smaller-than-peanut minds.  With the aid of the consultation document Education Blueprint for the 21st Century on brainstorming (don't get it wrong, they used it to hit each other's heads and not for the content...), the greatest invention of acronym since sliced bread emerged: ASS - Advanced Self-disciplinary System.

ASS Step 1: Demand Screwy to record his daily details of living, 1st activity - form design.  "Form design is important" - one of the essences in FoBM - perfect tools is the prerequisite for perfect results.

Timidly, Screwy started to work it out as instructed, even though he did not quite understand what the hack it was all about (well, except the word ASS).  He trembled thru a piece of paper and jotted down 2 columns - "Date" and "Task".  Upon submission, his parents screamed, "It's now the information age.  How could you ever think of using pencil and paper for the job?"

Screwy intended to ask what was wrong with pencil and paper, but held it back in view of his parents' hysterical reaction.  In order to avoid breaking their hearts, Screwy used the PC.  Anyway, parents are always right.  Upon 2nd submission, his parents commented, "Now, it looks more like it, for beginners.  However, do you find that the form is a bit too simplistic?  Try to figure out some enhancement on the design for better clarity.  You have to make full use of your creative thinking.  Also, we have come up a name for this form - Screw's Family Daily Logistic Matrix for the 21st Century."

So, Screwy squeezed out every drop of creativity from his brain.  In some 30 minutes, he picked a variety of great looking fonts and colors, and engineered the layout with the best matching font sizes and frame borders.  Not in vain, it earned high praises from his parents, "My dear child, you've made the first step."

ASS Step 2: Form filling.  Screwy filled in:

Screw's Family Daily Logistic Matrix for the 21st Century
Input by: Screwy Inspected by: Screwy's Mom Approved by: Screwy's Dad	07:00 Wash up, breakfast 07:30 Go to school 12:00 Lunch 15:30 End of classes 17:00 Homework and study 20:00 Dinner 22:00 Go to bed
Form ASS-709394-FoBM-EMadB-CEPA-2046 (21世紀殺死人表格)

Screwy's parents reviewed the form.  Tears burst into their eyes, "My child, you are just not progressing.  This is so lack of details, so casual.  Nowadays, we value highly the pursuit of excellence.  You have to expect more from yourself, to add value to yourself.  Think again and redo the form with every minute detail that you can capture for each task.  Only with the details can we help you to find out the root cause of your problems and apply fixes and supplements."

So, it was thought to be such a big mistake, and Screwy rushed to rectify accordingly.  Task details such as directions and number of turns when brushing teeth in wash-up were fully recorded.  Nonetheless, the originally 3 hours homework and study was then compressed to 1 hour, and bedtime deferred by an hour.  All important tasks became secondary to documentation.

Separately, Screwy's parents also criticised that his bedroom was utterly unsystematic.  They requested Screwy to set up a bedroom inventory system using Access for categorising and stock taking t-shirts, toys, bathroom tissue (with bar codes), etc.  Prior acquisition request to Screwy's parents or to the home administrative assistant is mandatory for all new bedroom stocks.  As of this point, Screwy's parents were gratified - the ISO model had been taking shape.

ASS Step 4: Planning.  (Oops, where is step 3?  How would Screwy know!  Don't ask, just do it.)  As per the request of his parents, Screwy was going to make an Annual Plan for himself, on pocket money budgeting.

/**Annual Plan - First, nail down the objectives of the year (say, "Be Good" - an universally vague statement with guaranteed political correctness at all times across human history).  Then, the goals and aims (the pair of keywords that you can never clearly distinguish, and yet you are ever told that you can never confuse).  Finally, the plan and the details.  At end of the year, an annual report and review.*/  Screwy ran into a brief coma afterwards.

So, Screwy spent the whole summer vacation to finish up his 2-inch thick Annual Plan.  In the process, he researched into all Annual School Plans (ASP, no, not .NET ASP) in town, and discovered that they all looked almost the same - so similar that one began to ask whether they were all written by the same person.  With this trade secret uncovered, Screwy "referenced" to a number of ASPs, with some cuts & pastes, and somehow patched up his "own" Annual Plan.

Screwy parents became more and more excited.  Since then, they further introduced the Self Evaluation and External Evaluation schemes.  They recruited Mrs. Chan (a neighbour) and Miss Chan (school teacher) with ultra expensive packages for an one-week wandering in the house, performing ambush evaluation on bedrooms and toilets.  One year later, Screwy exhausted.  2 years later, Screwy learnt of Dilbert thru the Parent and Child Extensive Reading Scheme, absorbed the essence of Dibertism, and began to apply tactful circumvention in relationship management with his parents.  In the 3rd year, Screwy was deeply touched by the movie The Wall acquainted thru one of the many One Art for Life⁽²⁾ overloading projects, and decided to rebel by burning all documents and smashing the PC.

Screwy's parents had finally tasted the fruit of FoBM, with their ASS silently retreating from the stage.

Mine's Notes

(1)

Excerpts from The Dilbert Principle, a must-have survival guide for all "quality" corporate workers, excluding management and those with management potential.

(2)

This is perhaps the most interesting findings during the translation of this story - in nowhere can the paper for the concept of One Art for Life (OAfL) instantiated by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) be located on the internet, not even in HKADC's site, but many others quote this term in their proposal and/or consultation documents.  On the bright side, OAfL is an "old" (1995) paper and thus softcopy doesn't exist.  On the dark side, does anyone care about its details, or simply just need to use the term OAfL for blind funding?