~ PLA IN SEARCH OF THE DIPLOMA ~Posted July, 1998 It is a mainframe operator on the other end of the line. She launches right into the problem. I close my eyes again and let my body sleep while my mind is going over all the possibilities. What did we change during the day - database reorg, coms system recompile, new database dump schedule, new pack family member? Was there a step we missed? Two more nights before I can pass this beeper over. Oh yeah a new app that didn't match the database timestamp. Did we remember to recompile that thing with the right control file? I am Terry Durkin and I have been with Human Resources Development Canada for 26 years. I started my career with HRDC in 1971when it was still called UIC. My first position was a records clerk at 1.94 per hour. I was hired for 7 weeks. Due to some unexplained glitch in the paper work , I am still working there. I have held various positions - Unit Record Operator - the equipment included sorters, decollators, gang punches, interpreters and inserters; Computer Operator - Burrough's B3500, 180 kilobytes of memory, 2 megabytes of disk, 30 tons of air conditioning; Computer Operations Shift Manager, Chief EDP Security, Software Support Analyst - 14 data bases, 20,000 users, 1800 applications; Manager EDP Security and my current position Senior Software Security Analyst - Data Warehouse, encryption, partner connectivity, electronic commerce, firewalls, WEB clients. Back when I started, the Manager and the Director of our office were more or less permanent fixtures. I got along very well with them and they liked my work. I will share with you an excerpt from one of my appraisals. ....Terry continues to provide excellent service to the RSHQ and the entire region as he carries out his numerous and complex responsibilities. He possesses exceptional organization and planning skills which together with his technical expertise and high work ethic make him a trusted and valued member of my staff. Terry is a dedicated, loyal officer who performs equally effectively under stress, achieving highly commendable results at all times. It is a distinct pleasure having Terry as a member of my team and I look forward to his continuing high level of achievement in the year ahead. There was basically no staff turnover at our office. Words like permanent staff, multi-year operational plans, regular staff and long term career goals dominated our conversation. In fact, it was pretty well a forgone conclusion back then that if you managed to become permanent staff in the government, you had cash for life; and a lot of people thought that "silly servants" did not even have to work too hard for it. Reminds me of a little joke - three young lads were arguing over whose father was the fastest driver. Freddy said his dad was the fastest because he was a fireman. He can drive to a fire in less than 10 minutes. No way said Tommy, my dad is a policeman. He drives faster than anyone. He can get to the scene of an accident in less than 5 minutes. You're both crazy said Johnny, my dad is the fastest. He is a public servant. The other two boys began laughing and said, how could you ever think your dad is the fastest driver? It's easy said Johnny, he leaves work at 4 o'clock and he is home at quarter after 3. Well, I said it was a little joke. Given this environment then, why would a public servant with over 20 years of experience have any desire to upgrade his education credentials, and why would he feel it necessary to get a college diploma? There were major changes going on in the ranks of the public service in the early 90's. New words started to creep into our vocabulary: words like down-sizing and restructuring, workforce adjustment and rightsizing, facilities management, outsourcing, affected departments, early departure, early retirement and the one nearest and dearest to our hearts - professional services. Some departments were amalgamated with others, some cut by 50%. In our department, 5000 of about 27000 jobs disappeared. Our office was on the short list of those considered for closure. New blood was brought in to bayonet the survivors - er - I mean um, mentor the restructuring opportunities. Our task was to become lean and mean. As one senior official put it, we had to teach the behemoth to do the ballet. Both the manager and director I reported to for all those years had moved on. I was left feeling a bit an uneasy. I had worked for more than 10 years in the security division. Much of the significant work I had done was under the auspices of the director. I was sworn to secrecy about the details so no-one actually knew much about what I did. There were hours of overtime, special projects, reports, investigations, special programs written, little extras you do - all deposits to a bank account of positive indicators with that director. When the new director took over, all that history was lost. New technology was being introduced at a rapid clip to provide the same service to the public with the reduced workforce. In order to service the new technology, there was a search for highly skilled technicians and technologists. The minimum education requirements for most jobs went from grade 12 to university degree or college diploma. People were being hired with postsecondary education, at the same pay scale I had struggled to achieve after 20 years. The key is that the new hirees had diplomas. Less than a diploma means less upwardly mobile, less valuable. It is just the way things are. I always felt my level of knowledge was at least equivalent and in some ways superior to college graduates. The government participates in COOP programs with colleges and universities across Canada. I had hired about a dozen COOP students to work in my section from Mohawk, Sheridan, and Georgian Colleges, and University of Waterloo. I had a pretty good idea what the capabilities of post secondary graduates were and I knew I measured up. In fact, some of those former students still ring me up to ask for advice on this or that problem. One young fellow in particular became good friends. He was pulling off a 90 something average in physics at Waterloo and sopped up information like a Hoover gone wild. He called just the other day to ask if I had some ideas on Year 2000 certification issues. He works for a major manufacturer now. At that time though, there was really no way to prove or disprove whether the level of learning I had achieved through experience was at the college level. There was no way I was aware of that I could obtain a college diploma short of quitting my job to attend full time studies. That was out of the question. I am the sole provider for a family of 6. My uneasiness was even beginning to cast doubts on my dream to play in the NHL. I guess I really haven't played hockey for a while but it is a crushing realization. However, you can't waste time beating a dead horse - get off! In the fall of 1993, I saw an ad in the Belleville Intelligencer that offered a glimmer of hope. The need I had to convert the knowledge gained from my experience to recognized college credits might exist after all. Portfolio Assisted Prior Learning Assessment made so much sense as a concept that I had to go and see what it was all about. I went to an information session at the college to learn more details about the process. There were about 20 people looking for the same thing I was. For one reason or another, they had not completed their education to the level they now wanted and needed. Every one of those people had assimilated tons of knowledge from their experience. Most were either reentering the work force or needed educational upgrading to qualify for a job they were currently doing . I remember one single mother in particular from a similar program in London. We had a panel presentation a couple of years ago at this very conference and the evidence she presented that verified her learning achievement just blew everybody away. A day in her life sounded like the plans to build the World Plaza, but she was still worried that she would not have enough evidence to get a few credits - not that she did not have the knowledge and not that she did not deserve the credits, but that the evidence would not be enough. All of us needed to upgrade our education on our own time because we could not take time out of our current responsibilities to attend full time classes. There was no other way to get the credits we wanted. Credit courses are generally not offered at night. A person cannot take more than one or two courses on a night schedule per semester even if they were offered so it would be about 10 years to complete a diploma. Only trees and tortoises can wait that long. I knew I needed a diploma in Information Systems. Anything less would make my chances in a government competition about equal to those of Bourne and Krantz in Olympic dance competition. The block judges say 3.9. Sorry about your luck! The first tasks we faced when we started the Prior Learning Assessment course were to prepare a chronological record and a life history paper. Sems pretty simple, doesn't it? When I got thinking about it, there were a lot of important events I had not thought about for a long, long time that started to flood back. Sometimes I had tears in my eyes completing the story but it still was a great thing to do. I started to see how much I had accomplished over my lifetime. It gave me a sense of confidence. The milestones are the personal events: * our wedding day where they had to ask everyone to leave the reception at 6 the next morning; * birth of children - turns out the baseball glove I bought for Michelle the day before she was born was prophetic - she was the best center fielder I ever saw; * family vacations - Chris and Connor going through the House of Horrors at the Calgary Stampede, Colin walking down Sulphur Mountain and all of us walking along Cavendish Beach; * Christmas 1979 - we finally finished building our house enough to move upstairs. We had lived in one room in the basement for 3 months, cooked on a wood cookstove and slept with 3 baby's under the age of three; * memories of loved ones that have passed on - my brother in-law, a professor at the University of Calgary who died in my arms at 43 - his work far from completed. They are the important things that shape us but THE BIG PICTURE gets lost in the detail of day to day living. Taking stock of my life was an intense emotional experience for me. It is funny though that the difficult things seem to give you the greatest sense of achievement. The history document helped me to focus on all the experiences I had and to see what learning had been attained from that experience. For instance, I have experience writing COBOL programs. I have experience repairing bugs and enhancing programs others have written; experience in incorporating someone else's code into my own to take advantage of robust routines for difficult algorithms; experience in interfacing with code libraries written in other languages such as ALGOL; and experience in troubleshooting someone else's code over the phone at 4 in the morning. Let's get back to the phone call we talked about in the beginning. The phone is ringing at 4 am because a jumbo jet that left Hong Kong 14 hours ago, across 11 or 12 timezones literally with 350 mothers, fathers, millionaires, billionaires and babies on board, has landed in Vancouver. All they have eaten is airline food, they are out of basic necessities such as diapers. Our Immigration Officers have to determine whether the passengers from that plane can join their friends and families waiting on the other side of the glass barrier that is our border - or have to go back to Hong Kong. There are interpreters, lawyers and agents all scrutinizing the Immigration Officers' every action. The officers rely on our mainframe computer to provide the information they need to help them make the right decision. When they have to call, it is serious. Delays lead to bad tempers and a real long night. They need to know the person at the other end of the call can really help. I'll be honest though, Maureen is usually the first one to pick up the phone. What learning is there in that experience? Is it enough to equal what a college graduate learns in two sixty hour courses? What mark should be assigned? Can the person assessing the portfolio get the sense that the portfolio is really worth an A, A+ ,B, C....? Is it enough to equal 60% of the learning outcomes of the 120 hours a full time student achieves? The answer to that question is the answer to whether PLA should be a priority for educators today. Remember, PLA was the only avenue I had to attain a diploma. It took 4 years. It was not easy. One teaching master commented that it probably would have been easier to take the courses. She was right. In the beginning, there was a big risk perceived by the college in granting me a diploma. The PLA program was experimental. There was a rule that the maximum number of course credits could not exceed 75% obtained through PLA unless the circumstances were exceptional. Physical evidence in the form of program listings for code I had written was hard to obtain because you don't tend to keep that type of thing around for eight or ten years. Think of how much the field has changed in the last six months. Much of the work I had done was as a member of a team or quick fixes and work-arounds in the middle of the night to a troublesome code snippet someone else had written. How should that count toward college credits? Do you really need to know how to program to do that type of thing? The answer is (as always) it depends. Who requires the most learning? The person who does the analysis, design, coding, testing and implementing of an automated application or the one they call when the application does not exist happily in the production milieu? It depends. Usually, there is a progression from coder to developer to Software Support analyst to whatever. In any case, when that plane lands, the people on it are depending on both and you can bet both respect the knowledge and skill of the other. And, with all due respect, you can bet that someone fresh out of college will require a few years in the pits before they get assigned to either of those jobs. To fill the gaps in the evidence trail, I obtained verification letters from colleagues and supervisors saying that I did indeed have the learning and skills I claimed. I had Personal Performance Appraisals stating that I was doing an excellent job. But, even these pieces of evidence were viewed with skepticism by some faculty. The real key to achieving a diploma was establishing a level of comfort between me and the Teaching Masters and identifying specific skills related to program outcomes. Once the core of subject masters got to know they were dealing with a fellow Information Systems professional and realized that I really did have the skill, knowledge and competence required to succeed in their discipline, any barriers to obtaining a diploma disappeared. The last few subjects went through quickly and the final marks were granted. I couldn't believe it; I was going to graduate in April 1997. At the graduation, it seemed a little strange to be with so many people the age of my children. Some of them asked which one of my children was graduating - and whether my wearing a graduation gown wasn't being a little over-enthusiastic. But when they realized it was graduation day too, they kind of looked at me in disbelief. They all said something like - wow that's great. Will you be my dad? There were many, many hours put into my diploma by a lot people. Those people know who they are. They come from Belleville, London, Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Ottawa, Ohio, Winnipeg and places I just know I am forgetting. We all have accomplished something very special here. I just happen to be the main beneficiary. The only way I can repay that support and help is to try to pass on some of the lessons. I hope in some small way I can do that. Those lessons are for adult learners: 1) It is possible. 2) It is not possible without help. 3) It is essential to get to know the core educators of the discipline you are pursuing. 4) You need to be tough on yourself. Lots of people will encourage you to do things that are more fun instead. Almost anything is more fun. 5) You cannot give up. It's true that the biggest breakthroughs come along just when everything seems most bleak. Absolutely true. 6) You are going to need friends and loved ones to see you through. 7) You acquire knowledge from all your experiences. Look for the difference between experience and knowledge. And for educators: 1) To me, the best educators are the ones who marvel at the capacity of their students to surpass them. 2) Learning is constant and unavoidable. The best service an educator can provide is to clearly state what learning outcomes are important and to support learners in achieving them. 3) There are eagles and chickens. The chickens are down in the dirt scratching out a living all day in conditions that may not be too sanitary. When the eagles descend from the heights the chickens look up to them. They can land in the yard and motivate the chickens to bustle around in great haste - even to fly. But for the most part, eagles cannot improve the chickens' lot very much. In fact, chickens would be happier if they just went away. Soaring has no relevance to chickens, but, how the eagle perceives the chickens has great relevance to chickens. So if you are an eagle, please use your vision to tell the chickens where it's best to scratch. There is one person who was most important in my attaining this personalmilestone. Whenever I needed support, understanding, help editing a paper,the right word, a warm cup of tea or a well placed burst of energy, she was there. Any time of the day or night. I would not have achieved this without my wife. Thank you Maureen. |