Our Careers, and the Changing Economy
Bestselling author Alvin Toffler wrote:
"As work shifted out
of the fields and the home, moreover, children had to be prepared for factory
life.
"The early mine, mill, and factory owners of industrializing England
discovered, as Andrew Ure wrote in 1835, that it was 'nearly impossible to
convert persons past the age of puberty, whether drawn from rural or from
handicraft occupations, into useful factory hands.'
"If young people could be
prefitted to the industrial system, it would vastly ease the problems of
industrial discipline later on.
"The result was another central structure of all
Second Wave [industrial-age] societies: mass education.
"Built on the factory model, mass education taught basic
reading, writing, and arithmetic, a bit of history and other subjects.
"This was
the 'overt curriculum.' But beneath it lay an invisible or 'covert curriculum'
that was far more basic.
"It consisted, and still does in most industrial
nations,of three courses: one in punctuality, one in obedience, and one in
rote, repetitive work.
"Factory labor demanded workers who showed up on time,
especially assembly-line hands.
"It demanded workers who would take orders from
a management hierarchy without questioning.
"And it demanded men and women
prepared to slave away at machines or in offices, performing brutally
repetitious operations.
"To prepare youth for the job market, educators designed
standardized curricula.
"Men like Binet and Terman devised standardized
intelligence tests.
"School grading policies, admission procedures, and
accreditation rules were similarly standardized. The multiple-choice test came
into its own."
Toffler goes on to show that the economy is now changing in
drastic ways, and those who are prepared in their schooling for such
industrial-age work will be limited to low-paying jobs.
The economy now rewards
employees and entrepreneurs with a totally different set of skills: initiative,
independent and creative thinking, ability to work in and lead teams, and
especially, in Toffler's words, "self-starting entrepre-neurialism."
He shows that the economy is looking for people who have
learned "in and/or out of school" to be:
- "less pre-programmed and faster on their feet"
- "complex, individualistic, proud of the ways in
which they differ from other people"
- hungry "for more responsibility and more vital work with a
commitment worthy of their talent and skill"
- interested in diverse values, the synergy of
teams, and leadership by principles rather than authoritarian hierarchies
The new affluent economy, "penalizes workers who show blind
obedience. It rewards those who, within limits, talk back."
It prefers people "who
seek meaning, who question authority, who want to exercise discretion, or who
demand that their work be socially responsible."
The result is that most schools don't prepare young people
for success in the realities of the affluent economy.
To help youth become
effective in highly-compensated work, schools need to train leaders.
For more by Oliver DeMille on Education and the future of Freedom and Prosperity, see:
