Teacher Tom: I Will Not Prepare Children for The "Jobs of Tomorrow"

Teacher Tom: I Will Not Prepare Children for The "Jobs of Tomorrow"

I Will Not Prepare Children for The "Jobs of Tomorrow"

I've spent most of my professional career railing against the widely held belief that our schools exist for the purpose of vocational training. Those "jobs of tomorrow" our policymakers are always going on about? "Out educating the Chinese?" Getting the kids "college and career ready?" What a crock. First of all, no one knows what those jobs of tomorrow might be, no matter how authoritatively they speak of the future. The jobs that today's five-year-olds will be applying for 20 years from now are unimaginable to us. Indeed, it will be the children of today who invent the jobs of tomorrow. And this has always been true, going back at least to the Industrial Revolution when policymakers were certain that we would all move to the cities to take our place along an assembly line. My own high school career counselor got it wrong. Most of the jobs our daughter is applying for today didn't exist when she was a preschooler. As for competing with the Chinese, that's a dubious and mercenary adult concern, one that is a cruelty when inflicted on innocent children.

No, the proper "career" aspiration for a preschooler is princess. 

The role of education (not necessarily school) in a self-governing society is to produce good citizens, critical thinkers CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: I Will Not Prepare Children for The "Jobs of Tomorrow"

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: College Is For Meat Widgets, Not That Learnin' Stuff

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: College Is For Meat Widgets, Not That Learnin' Stuff

FL: College Is For Meat Widgets, Not That Learnin' Stuff

Oh, Florida.

GOP State Senator Dennis Baxley wants only some students to have Bright Futures. Under his bill SB 86, the scholarship program would be targeted only for those students who are pursuing majors that lead "directly to employment."

Baxley offers a folksy justification for this, saying his own sociology degree was very nice and all, but wouldn't buy him a cup of coffee, and not until he got that associate degree that he was able to make a buck opening his funeral parlor. As God is my witness, I am not making this up.

This "refocus" comes with an endorsement from Senate President Wilton Simpson, who points out that "All too often the debate surrounding higher education focuses on the cost to the student, in terms of tuition and fees, but never the cost to the taxpayer or the actual value to the student." 

More from Baxley:

We want all of our students to succeed in meaningful careers that provide for their families and serve our communities. As taxpayers we should all be concerned about subsidizing degrees that just lead to debt, instead of the jobs our students want and need. We encourage all students to pursue their passions, but when it comes to taxpayer subsidized education, there needs to be a link to our CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: College Is For Meat Widgets, Not That Learnin' Stuff

CURMUDGUCATION: What An Education Uber Actually Looks Like

CURMUDGUCATION: What An Education Uber Actually Looks Like

What An Education Uber Actually Looks Like

Betsy DeVos is among the many education disruptors fond of imagining a world in which education is handled Uber-style; but we don't have to imagine what a gig-economy education system would look like. It already exists.

Outschool was founded in 2015 by Amir Nathoo (he cutely lists his title as "learner" in his LInkedIn profile), and while he looks like he's about twelve, he's been at work for a while. He got a Master's Degree from the University of Cambridge in 2002, worked in software development for IBM, founded a couple of companies, invested in a few other, and then launched Outschool. The company is based in San Francisco.

Nathoo was interviewed by Rick Hess back in 2019 in an interview that Education Next just dusted off because, as you might imagine, Nathoo's distance learning micro-credential marketplace is having a strong pandemic moment. In it, Nathoo describes Outschool this way:

Outschool offers live online education experiences that connect teachers with learners in small-group settings to explore everything from Minecraft, Pokemon, and cooking to chemistry, algebra, and literature.

Nathoo also talks a lot about fun and passion, and his story always mentions how he got a computer when he was five and that sparked an interest in games and programming and his technology career, leading him to create this marketplace for "fun and social learning experiences." Others have characterized it with less sparkle, like the Techcrunch article that characterized it as "a platform for CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: What An Education Uber Actually Looks Like