Students And Worker Training
February 16, 2008
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.
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.
Which bring up a deeper ideological question. The corporation almost always argues for less government, for lower taxes, and for privatization of everything possible. Given that, why should corporations now insist that government pay to train workers? if privatization is the superior strategy, here is a perfect opportunity for corporations to prove it. Is business arguing for workforce development simply to avoid the costs? If so, it appears that business has subjugated concerns for education to the desire for someone else to pay the costs. If corporations bear the costs, then by their own arguments, the pressures of the free market will produce the best solutions. This approach does not move us toward our conclusion, but it does expose a major flaw in this sort of thinking.
Another consideration is whether the concept of job training is consistent with the needs of the democracy. Police states want job training for the populace– and nothing else (and more than a few businesses operate like police states). Whether in the state, the workplace, or in the church, dictatorial leaders want no one of independent mind. Police states hardly want challenges to their competence, much less, probity. Autocrats want quiet, unthinking, but efficient workers, who do, and do not ask. Job training as opposed to citizen training is the final insight, and strongly points to the problem of turning our schools into centers of workforce development.
This is because the concept that education should exist to train workers is much too low of a target for a healthy democracy. It is said that in America, any child can grow up to be President. This is not entirely accurate, because in America, EVERY child grows up to be President. When our citizens step into the ballot box, they each become our Head of State; we all run the country.
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.
Democracy requires citizens; citizens who are scientists, philosophers, psychologists, economists, administrators, who can put it all together and derive some understanding of the world around us. Will the citizen who can do this also be a strong employee? Yes. And she will be a strong manager, a strong entrepreneur, as well as a strong civic activist, and a vocal and forceful advocate for progress, peace and prosperity. And when the marketplace shifts– as it is continuously doing, at an ever-accelerating rate– she will shift with it, because she will understand the fundamental concepts that will allow her to re-employ HERSELF.
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.
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