Teacher Tom: The Path Into the Future

Teacher Tom: The Path Into the Future

The Path Into the Future

If you've read here for any length of time, you'll know that I'm dismissive of anyone talking about those mythological jobs of tomorrow. No one can possibly know what jobs the children we teach will be applying for when they start to enter the job market 20 years from now, but there's never a shortage of deep voiced know-it-alls who assert not only that they know what's coming, but how we can best prepare our children for it. During the Industrial Revolution they told parents that their kids better get ready for a future on the assembly line, when I was a boy the future was all about plastics, now our kids are all going to grow into technology careers whether they like it or not. It never comes to pass because no one ever knows the future, except maybe the five-year-olds who will be the ones inventing those jobs of tomorrow, and they're currently quite busy planning their futures as princesses and baseball players.

We've all had occasion to contemplate the future these past couple months as we're living lives very few of us anticipated. Of course, like earthquakes and stock market crashes, pandemics are to be expected, but most of us haven't spent our lives preparing for them. We might have some canned goods and bottled water stashed away on a bottom shelf of the pantry, laid away in anticipation of disasters to come, and I know a few people who live each day as if the sky were about to fall, but most of us choose to not spend our short CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Path Into the Future