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Schools and Business Skills 
By: Joseph N. Abraham, M.D.
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?
Even if we made the poor assumption that we are training our students for just one job, the skill sets necessary for any position will change constantly. This is true for even the least-skilled jobs. Even menial workers will need, more and more, to work with computers, new equipment, and understand the potential liabilities inherent in any work. As the job description enlarges with moving up the organizational lader, the necessary skills accelerate at an ever-increasing rate.\. So even if there were only one career track for each student, we are committing ourselves to enormous, continuous ongoing training costs. That is, if our students are incapable of training themselves. That is our first insight here.
Next, we will need to decide whether each student will become management, or labor. Highly skilled jobs require critical thinking skills, and a wide knowledge of many different fields. Less-skilled jobs-- even middle management-- require a more focused training that concentrates more on attention to details, and frequently moves away from autonomous thinking. At the same time, it is impossible to predict who will be management, or labor. So, train the employee, fail the manager. Train the manager, fail the employee. This is a second consideration.
Next, we need to ask how it is that citizens, with moderate private income, should pay taxes to produce workers for corporations, which have very large budgets? If commerce needs to train workers for the corporation, private individuals should not pay taxes to support this.
There is a related philosophical problem here. Industry generally insists on a minimalist government, and the freest markets possible. So if industry desires division of business and government, how can we then decide that it is the responsibility of government to underwrite the needs of industry? If business argues that it is more flexible and efficient than government at everything else, then it is disingenuous to now argue that government should train industry's workers. It would seem to be an attempt to shift the cost to the general population, even though it will be less efficient, simply because business interests will bear a much smaller cost. So worker training seems to be at odds with the key concepts of the free market, particularly efficiency and accountability. That clue points more to the problems with motives rather than goals, but it is an important insight nonetheless.
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.
The idea that our schools are places for workforce training is entirely inadequate for a strong democracy. In our country, we say that any boy or girl can become the President some day. But this is untrue, because they ALL do. When they vote, every one of us is the Commander-in-Chief; all citizens govern the nation.
Historically, this is interesting. Socrates (via Plato) cautioned his pupils of the dangers inherent with democracy, and likened it to allowing everyone access to the ship's wheel (this is where we get the concept of the "ship of state"). Socrates was wrong, of course, and his fear is our triumph. It is through collective decision-making that the advanced countries excel.
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.
Seeing these things, we can understand that training our children for jobs is not the answer, not at all. Vocational preparation is insufficient for the democracy. Democracy absolutely must have discerning citizens who have a grasp of multiple complex disciplines. As do our neighborhoods, our churches-- and our businesses.
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.
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 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 do not need workers, at least not first. We need independent-minded citizens, critical thinkers, fast re-learners: in our community, in our political process, and in our businesses. If we train employees rather than voters, then government and communities will fail, and business will fail with them.
But if we graduate broadly-educated citizens, all will flourish.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
Joseph N. Abraham, MD, is president and founder of booksXYZ.com, The Non-profit Bookstore. He is also the author of the book Happiness.
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