Want Your Views:

[browolf]

I've always worked the choice issue the same way I did with the children when they were small:

eg: your child needs a hairwash. There isn't a choice as to whether the hair is washed or not, but they can choose yellow or red shampoo.

Sounds a bit simplistic, I know, but as others have said, too much choice leads to problems, but people work better if they feel that they have some small grasp on their own destiny.

So, give them a small amount of choice (eg choice of browser) but make sure that both choices will have the same result...

 

thats like the chaos version of choice, choice within no choice. disorder within order.

[beeswax]

Back to Russ' point of too much choice ... do we have too much choice for TV? [ ... ] help people choose so that that they can keep making their own choices.

 

Look at the way choice is laid our for you on Sky Movies for example. You don't simply get a long list of the movies on that evening, in order to guide your choice Sky has placed the movies in categories in order to help you make a choice. Similarly when a teacher asks us to source a product or service the choice we give them is constrained by price, and they choose the optimum within that range.

On the other hand, the internet being the egalitarian world it is offers so much choice that after a while you tend to self-censor your choices otherwise you'd suffocate under the weight of choice. We limit choice for our pupils by having white lists and black lists. In our school the techies inform choice by advising those teachers who approach you with a new piece of software that they might consider buying the network version rather than asking us to install it on 500 machines. All choice is constrained by the circumstance of our situation.

What we are beginning to offer pupils now via the Learning to Learn programme is the ability to make their own informed choices, to play a greater role in their own learning by teaching them the skills to analyse and assimilate useful information whilst discarding that which is worthless.

The choice with BSF is not to take it or leave it, as I believe that battle, if it ever was one, has been lost, but to make sure that within the constraints of BSF we work towards broadening the choices available to the school body.

 

Choice has always been available for those who can afford it.

[mossj]

But in a business place is probably more relaxed?

 

I don't think this is true in a well run business every 'choice' will have it's advantages and disadvantages weighed, and a senior staff member will make the choice for everyone based on whats best for the business.