One of the issues I enjoyed discussing in the Honors forum class this semester was the question of whether school is preparing kids for the career world. Neil Postman addressed in his chapter on the “False god of Economic Utility.” Economic utility (g of EU) is the idea that if you go to school, you will guarantee yourself a good job. School is the training ground for your job. The belief is that the better jobs are only for those with a degree.
But I am not sure this is the case anymore. What is the likelihood now of someone getting a degree and using that degree in his or her job? Very low. For example, my dad has a degree in business and he is a freelance cartoonist. I suppose by working on his own he is using his degree. But his job does not require him to be a business major. My mom has a degree in Physical Education. She is a stay at home mom who taught us from kindergarten through high school. She may have been able to use some of what she learned in college for our P.E. time, but mostly we would play outside in our own little imaginary worlds. The point is that both my parents did not get a job that requires their degree. Their degree may benefit their lives a bit. But is that little bit worth four or five years of college and tuition fees? I don’t think so.
In our class project I learned a lot about the Nigerian school system. They seem to have figured out how to produce citizens that are trained in an expertise and actually get a job in that expertise. How do they do this? They start the process of determining a career at a young age. By the time Nigerian students reach our level of sophomore or junior year of high school, they have already narrowed down and thoroughly studied the career they want to pursue. The school system does not require them to experience every single subject you can imagine all throughout a student’s education. Instead they experience a variety of subjects in elementary school, and in junior high they can begin the narrowing process. In high school they further shape and focus on their career path. One main difference between the U.S. and Nigeria is Nigeria does not require students to take extra curricular activities. I think this helps the students narrow their topics. They seem to be focusing on what they can learn about their subject verses learning as much as you can about every subject.
Another group’s project was on the No Child Left Behind Act. Their presentation was very informative. It got me wondering about what our school systems focus has become. Are we training students to pass a national test? …a test that can only measure so much information. Or are we training students to become the best that can be? And what does that mean? I don’t think we can achieve this by shuffling kids through a system. They need personal attention, a passion for learning to make our world a better place, and the tools to help them live in this crazy world. So maybe it’s not about getting a good job after all. Maybe it is to find something that you love to do and could do for the rest of your life. I think that is why there are so many undecided students. They do not know what they are good at or what they want to do. We’ve been told that we can do anything we want to do if we just work hard enough to achieve it. When you can do anything, how do you choose? How do you decide you like something over something else? Do go with what your passion is or what will make the most money? It is so hard to decide.
Maybe we need to change our bent. Maybe we need to focus more on what a child can do and what they are good at. Encourage them to pursue what they like to do verse pretty much everything. Give them the tools they need to fine tune their skills. Help open doors of opportunity for them. Maybe we’ll have less frustrated students who don’t know what to do.
I was blessed with parents who wanted to educate me in the important areas, but also help me focus on my passions and talents. They really encouraged me on my education major choice. They helped me find opportunities to explore that field. Now that I want to become a teacher, I want to give students the knowledge they need to discover their own passions and talents like my parents did for me. I want to help them become the best they can be. With a little bit of hard work and encouragement, they might just get there.
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