Schools And Business Skills
Sunday, December 30th, 2007A new concept emerging in many communities is the idea that the primary goal of education is to produce better workers. Our schools should support our economy. As might be expected, the people advocating such an approach tend to be employers.
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?
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.
After we consider those problems, we will also have to decide whether each student will become a manager, or an employee? Management necessarily deals with many data from many disciplines, and requires the ability to synthesize the information. Moving down the corporation ladder, skill sets become narrower, less independent, and more focused on rules and details. Look around any corporation, and it becomes quite clear that there was no way to predict who would become a manger, and who would become an employee. So if we train leaders, followers will be poorly trained; and obviously, the reverse is equally true. This gives us a second insight.
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.
We must also ask how worker training fits into the democracy. Oppressive governments want worker training– and too many businesses are run like oppressive governments. Certainly an oppressive leader– in the nation, in the marketplace, or in religion– does not want independent-minded people running loose. Oppressive organizations can hardly withstand questioning about the strength and ethics of the current leadership. To the opposite, the oppressive organization only wants worker bees, who will simply do, and not think. Oppressive organizations vs. free democracies is the last insight, and tightly sums up the problems of worker training in the schools of free peoples.
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.
However, that is accurate only when the population consists of robust, self-reliant, and intelligent thinkers. In the weariest parts of the world, where there is is insufficient education and no tradition of free independence, democracies collapse. Free, democratic governments only survive where the voters think for themselves, and act accordingly.
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.
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.
Our world demands citizens who are versed in many disciplines, who can analyze and synthesize, who understand that the sciences, the humanities, business, politics, and the social sciences are all inter-related, and that they all interact to give us the world we live in– the one through which we must navigate our “ship of state”. Of course, a citizen who understands these things will also be a good employee; but not good at one job, and at one trade, but at almost anything we can throw at her, because she will have the understanding and intellectual skills to re-educate herself to adapt to the rapidly changing world around her.
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 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 graduate broadly-educated citizens, all will flourish.