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Schools And Business Skills
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Schools And Business Skills

By: Joseph N. Abraham, M.D.

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.

Such an approach appears to be insufficient. First of all, if we are engaged in workforce development, then what workers are we developing? For which job shall we train workers? There is a popular slide show claiming that today's graduate will hold 10 to 14 jobs by age 38. What will those jobs be? And even if we knew what they would be, we couldn't possibly train for that many jobs. For which of them should we train our workers?

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that training workers for only one job was a reasonable approach. How will they deal with constantly-changing skills that every job now requires? Consider the lowest-paid, minimally trained worker in any company. More and more, all employees have to be able to work with computer programs, train on new machinery, and handle equipment and chemicals that will often carry risks to the workers or the public. Then consider that as our students move into higher slots in the organization chart, that the quantity of skills, and the rate of change, will enlarge at ever-faster speeds. So by training students for just one job, that one job is a endless learning quest. So we see that with this approach, we have lashed ourselves to a lifetime of expensive continuing education for all employees. Unless employees are capable of learning on their own. And that gives us one clue here.

Next, we will need to decide whether each student will become management, or labor. Highly skilled jobs require critical thinking skills, and a wide knowledge of many different fields. Less-skilled jobs-- even middle management-- require a more focused training that concentrates more on attention to details, and frequently moves away from autonomous thinking. At the same time, it is impossible to predict who will be management, or labor. So, train the employee, fail the manager. Train the manager, fail the employee. This is a second consideration.

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.

And that brings us to a more fundamental question. Businesses frequently clamor for smaller government, and insist that private entities can do almost anything better than public bodies. Why then should government pay for the needs of businesses? If for-profit initiatives are superior to public bureaucracies, then let each business pick up the cost of worker training, and give us the most efficient, economical solution. Otherwise, it appears that business' interest in education is not truly educational, but purely mercenary: shift the costs to someone else. If businesses can do everything else better than government, why not train their own workers? This insight focuses on the origins of the workforce argument, rather than the conclusions, but it a crucial understanding nevertheless.

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.

The idea that our schools are places for workforce training is entirely inadequate for a strong democracy. In our country, we say that any boy or girl can become the President some day. But this is untrue, because they ALL do. When they vote, every one of us is the Commander-in-Chief; all citizens govern the nation.

Historically, this is interesting. Socrates (via Plato) cautioned his pupils of the dangers inherent with democracy, and likened it to allowing everyone access to the ship's wheel (this is where we get the concept of the "ship of state"). Socrates was wrong, of course, and his fear is our triumph. It is through collective decision-making that the advanced countries excel.

This only holds, however, if the citizens are independent-minded equals. In the poor, undereducated nations, democracy dies; it only flourishes where there is a thinking populace who understand the long-term obligations and implications of their choices.

Seeing these things, we can understand that training our children for jobs is not the answer, not at all. Vocational preparation is insufficient for the democracy. Democracy absolutely must have discerning citizens who have a grasp of multiple complex disciplines. As do our neighborhoods, our churches-- and our businesses.

We should not be educating a workforce; we should be educating a citizenry. We should be educating a population who have a grasp of history, economics, the sciences, and particularly, a grasp of the many complex cultures of the world. America is at war in two countries, and though the country is divided on the necessity and management of those wars, it is clear to everyone that grave errors were committed because we did not understand the history and the cultures we were dealing with. Since we cannot possibly prepare our citizens for every eventuality that might arise in our nation's future, we should also educate a population who will continue to educate themselves throughout life.

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 in the ideal economy, she will only hold jobs run by yet other well-rounded citizens, by supervisors who equally understand that all of their workers have eyes, and ears-- and brains-- and who are therefore key assets, and critical decision-makers in the everyday running of the company. As business becomes more complex, and as the workforce in the advanced economies becomes better-educated, new models of management increasingly move decision-making from the centralized, dictatorial autocrat, to the decentralized, autonomous employee. Exactly like the democracy.

We do not need workers, at least not first. We need independent-minded citizens, critical thinkers, fast re-learners: in our community, in our political process, and in our businesses. If we train employees rather than voters, then government and communities will fail, and business will fail with them.

But if we train citizens, all will prosper.

Article Source: http://articlenexus.com

Joseph N. Abraham, MD, is president and founder of booksXYZ.com, The Non-profit Bookstore. He is also the author of the book Happiness.

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