Abstract
The happy, productive and healthy company is a corporate objective. Despite the misgivings expressed by some at Toshiba, on the whole employees seemed content and productive, yet there was a level of dissatisfaction with the then present practice. In this chapter I demonstrate how I used literature to help students learn more about work and themselves. I aim to reveal the relationship between learning and confidence and to explore how literature can support students in making a more substantial contribution to their organisations. If reflection is a fundamental requirement in high quality work, the capacity for reflection is nurtured by literature. The ability to deliver results, to possess commercial and business awareness, to work successfully in a team are all qualities encouraged throughout one’s working life. My contention is that reflection on literature creates that breakthrough moment in students, that perception of themselves as confident professionals who can finally match their know-how to theory: students can use literature to become more reflective learners and employees. This chapter also describes how James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” can be used to help students explore style and voice as well as socio-cultural issues such as racism and exclusion.
The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is educated.
—James Baldwin
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Notes
- 1.
Toshiba Tec Corporation is a division of Toshiba that specialises in providing retail solutions, principally photocopying and printing. In this Chap. 1 subsequently refer to this company simply as Toshiba. The origins of the course and its structure will be delineated in the appendix, as will any other relevant course or programme structures.
- 2.
Separate hour long interviews with Mags Thomas and the students were conducted a year after not only the module but subsequent seminar discussions had finished.
- 3.
The programme of activities for this group had been written before I started working for the Institute for Work Based Learning. I will refer to it in the appendix.
- 4.
SWOT is a structured planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a project.
- 5.
The expression “silo” originates from the late 1980s idea that a “silo” system is one incapable of reciprocal operations with other systems and suggests a rigid and controlling mind set.
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Eastman, C.A. (2016). Opening up a World of Literature at Toshiba. In: Improving Workplace Learning by Teaching Literature. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29028-7_2
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