Knowledge may be priceless, but education is clearly not - Peter Thiel.
“Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office—to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set the hearts of their youth on flame…. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.
The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.
They are such as to become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised of self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances…” Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) - Man Thinking
Emerson predicted it, and now many of us have gone to school for a job that will not exist ten years from now. While the United States spends more than most countries per student. $12,200/ per student increasing each year but still has not gotten us very far. It seems that the more we have spent on education, the less effective our system has been. Now money means better access to education, and we see there is a distinguishable inequality between economic classes.
Education should not be a source of social mobility.
Last week I proposed a new deal for moving America into the future.
A lot of elements play a part, but now is the time to be thinking of these ideas.
I purposed in my last article that direct mentorship can play a massive role in the future of teaching in the United States.
Everyone remembers “take your child to work day,” now imagine if there was a mentorship program for every high school student with our 55+ working class. Taken seriously, this would fill the mentorship resources.
America is facing a population problem. People are having fewer kids, which means fewer prospective students, and fewer future bright minds of America. The way we are heading, we are ill-fit to compete on the global landscape with countries like China. We need to see our education system as something that needs to make dire changes.
Mentorship programs are not a new idea. Some of the best education systems in the world have the exact opposite approach. Their norm is apprenticeships rather than University.
If you ask people there, they said that hardly anyone went to University, and if you didn’t go, you could still get a high paying job.
Germany and Switzerland differ to some degree, but both emphasize the importance of dual systems. Kids after 15 or 16 have numerous options, and most start apprenticeships or workplace training and programs in trades that teach them professional competence.
Students often go to a vocational school for approximately two days a week, with the rest of the time spent in on-the-job training for about 3-4 years and then receive a federal diploma.
“Vocational training applies to 260 professions in industry, trades, and commerce. A separate law covers the fields of agriculture and forestry.
A diverse spread of traditional schools, higher vocational schools, and apprenticeship programs all niche and specific to the future career.”
Most young adults in Germany, reply that the most important thing they got from their primary education was professional education and training.
Most further education or University took place at career crossroads. Labor-market compatible options for their graduates reinforce these upper secondary vocational tracks. Schools focus on recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers who are up to date in their field and experts in their area.
Think about it as a skill attainment via directed learning.
In the United States, most college students are told they need an internship to get a job. Often, most college advisors tell you to get one in the last two years at University. But we’ve all heard the stories of students who did an internship and then wanted to switch majors, thousands of dollars and a few semesters later.
Guidance counselors could ask more profound questions related to individual competencies rather than pushing college blindly as a default to students without a plan. High school apprenticeships should be public and start earlier, a repeated process for anyone 16+.
In the United States, most of our programs here target areas where the high school drop out rate or child poverty rate is high or to juvenile delinquents. The programs focus on trying to help these kids believe that they can go to college… but if they could have an excellent job without college, wouldn’t that be better?
The most successful people I know have linked themselves to a mentor, and the knowledge obtained from those experiences was unlike anything in the classroom.
That way, the oldest generation can give determine if those up and coming are cut out for the real world. Life training. Later these strategies can be useful to the young adults looking for positive role models. Young adults would have the courage to ask and seek out their teachers instead of learning how to cheat the system. Not memorizing old information but obtaining or refining skills that hopefully can’t be automated.