Tags: [Business, Education, Education in the United States, job training, student training]
One popular concept in education discussions is that our schools should focus on workforce support. This approach argues that the primary goal of our schools should be to support industry. As one might suspect, these approaches most often emerge from the business sector.
It is not clear that this strategy is the best. One question that immediately emerges is, What job are we training our students for? The “Did You Know” video that is popular on the Internet points out that the average worker will hold about a dozen jobs before the age of 40. So if we are training a workforce, for what job are we training them? And how could we ever train them for that many different jobs?
Even if we were to take the unreasonable approach that we are training “workers” who would spend an entire career in one kind of work, technology changes. The abilities required today of the lowest-skilled jobs are far different today than they were 20 years ago. Even janitors need to be able to order supplies on-line, handle new equipment, and understand the proper use and disposal of dangerous chemicals; for jobs more complicated than custodial work, the needed skills expand exponentially. So if by some chance we could successfully train our students for one job that they would keep their entire careers, we will still need to spend large sums of money constantly re-training them. Unless, of course, our workers could train themselves. And that provides our first clue.
Another problem that emerges is that in traditional educational approaches, we have to decide whether we wish to train leaders or employees. The education of the doctor, the engineer and the attorney focus on broad, theoretical education and in-depth analysis. By contrast, the training of the nurse, the mechanic and the paralegal, focus more on practical skills, narrow guidelines, and clerical tasks. And even minimal experience has shown us that it is impossible to predict where any student will end up in the business. So if we train the employee, we fail the leader; and vice versa. This supplies us with another clue.
Next, why should the average taxpayer dedicate public funds garnered from her private, moderate income to fund the training of workers for industries, most of which earn much more money than the worker? If industry wishes better workers, you and I should not have to bear that cost out of our pockets.
There is a related philosophical problem here. Industry generally insists on a minimalist government, and the freest markets possible. So if industry desires division of business and government, how can we then decide that it is the responsibility of government to underwrite the needs of industry? If business argues that it is more flexible and efficient than government at everything else, then it is disingenuous to now argue that government should train industry’s workers. It would seem to be an attempt to shift the cost to the general population, even though it will be less efficient, simply because business interests will bear a much smaller cost. So worker training seems to be at odds with the key concepts of the free market, particularly efficiency and accountability. That clue points more to the problems with motives rather than goals, but it is an important insight nonetheless.
Workforce development is also at odds with the tenets of the democracy. Consider for a moment that workforce development is what totalitarian regimes target (and we must remember, poorly-run businesses can be eerily similar to totalitarian regimes). The last thing an oppressive organization– government, corporation, or church– wants, is thinkers. Highly centralized organizations do not want hard questions asked by their minions, they do not want workers who will question the status quo. All manner of dictators want mindless workers, who will tacitly and faithfully serve the desires of the leadership. The needs of the dictator vs. the needs of the democracy is the last clue, and points up more than anything the problem of equating education to workforce development.
These ideas are inadequate, because in a free democracy, education should not serve worker training. Here in the USA, one of our favorite saws is that it is possible for any young student to be elected President one day. The problem with this argument, is that EVERY student in the USA becomes President. When we cast our ballots, we are all the Chief Executive of the country; so everyone is President.
There is an irony here. Socrates warned us of the danger when all hands control the ship of state; in fact, it is from Socrates’ warning that we receive the idea that government is a ship. But his fear has been proven wrong: democracy turned out to be the great strength of America. It is when all of us decide together, that we are the strongest.
But that is true only if the citizens are a hardy group of equals, of free, self-reliant, thinking citizens. Democracy fails in illiterate, impoverished countries of the world, where it quickly declines into an autocracy. Democracy only flourishes where the citizens are independent-minded.
So clearly, the democracy can hardly tolerate mindless worker bees. The democracy needs– demands in fact– incisive, broadly-trained thinkers. But then, so do communities, churches, service organizations, and yes, even corporations.
Workers are not what we need, not primarily. Citizens are what we need. The needs of the democracy require citizens with understandings of technology, geography, culture, history, political science, and economics. As the US is engaged in battles abroad, we can see that our misunderstanding of the cultures we are dealing with, and their history, has led to some enormous errors. As we engage with countries around the globe, we do not want to make those mistakes again. And so the person in the street needs not only to have been educated in these fields, but needs equally to continue that education, as a life-long quest.
We need citizens who are flexible and broadly educated, who have a grasp of how science and history and literature and traditions commingle to produce cultures, communities– and citizens and nations. And yes, the citizen will also be able to hold a job; but she will also be able to hold down many different jobs, because she will be able to quickly learn and re-train herself to the accelerating changes in the modern market.
And once we have educated the enlightened citizen-worker, she will also work for equally well-educated citizens, those who are mindful and respectful of the critical skills of their employees and their customers. And these enlightened managers will be able to take the input from all of these diverse viewpoints, and synthesize them to create business models that look less and less like the outmoded aristocratic structures of the past, and more and more like the democratic structures of today, and of the future.
We need thinkers, we need learners, and we need leaders: in the democracy, in the community, and in the corporation. If we train Workers, but not citizens, as the democracy and the community collapse, the workforce will collapse with them.
But if we train citizens, all will prosper.
About the Author:
Joseph N. Abraham, MD, is president and founder of APSE, booksXYZ.com, The Non-profit Bookstore listing over 2,000,000 books. He is also the author of the book Happiness.
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