The future of education: Learn a trade
What if the education pundits of the edtech echo chamber are wrong? Forgive my oversimplification and somewhat snarky characterization of the pundits’ position: There are a lot of people in China and India who are really good at math and science; their sheer genius, superior numbers, and drive will bury us in the global marketplace. Our education system is a relic of the industrial age when manufacturing was important; the new Information Age economy will require nimble minds as nobody will have the same job for more than two weeks. Students need to use blogs and wikis because information management is the key to the future; developing nations will produce all the stuff we need while we magically maintain our standard of living by crunching numbers, managing information, learning new things, developing new computer models that will give us new ways to create wealth out of nothing, etc.
The fundamental problem with this view of the unpredictable, unfathomable future is that it assumes that the relatively recent historical growth trends will continue in a positive direction, always more and more. In other words, the assumption is that we’ll continue to live in a technology and information rich, globalized world.
But then it happened. I started reading about peak oil and how we have been sleepwalking into the future with little understanding of what will happen when our society, built on a steady supply of cheap oil, no longer has it. Consider the changes that have resulted from increased gas prices over the last couple of years. Imagine what will happen in the coming years with our current financial crisis. Will there be a place for those quick-learning information masters we’re supposed to be training?
Here’s what I can see happening: The world becomes more local. Based on my admittedly rudimentary understanding of peak oil, I don’t see how the trend toward globalism is sustainable or even possible before long. Sure, there will be international talk and trade, but only at an elite level. Unfortunately, we’ve contracted out our manufacturing base to cheaper labor sources scattered about the world; we’re quickly becoming dependent on other nations to supply us with the stuff we want. The stuff we want, and even the stuff we need, will cost more.
As our world contracts, there will be increased demand and pressure to organize ourselves according to traditional models, such as villages. The demand for traditional trades and practices increases (think traditional, small-scale agriculture vs. industrial agriculture).
The information economy goes boom. I mean really, what demand will there be for it when we struggle to meet even our most basic needs?
The questions for me are: What will the role of education be in this new world? Are current schooling models sustainable without cheap oil? Will those in control of education miss the mark by trying to educate our youth for a world that won’t exist in a few years? Perhaps the shrinking world will finally let us choose more meaningful indicators of successful schools beyond test scores. Maybe education as we know it becomes even more irrelevant. My guess is that the much forgotten wisdom of our ancestors becomes much more important. All of a sudden, knowing a trade doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
The irony, of course, is that David was right; I just didn’t realize it would be in the opposite direction of what I first assumed.
What do you think the future without oil will be like? How do you think that will impact education?
