I have to challenge again the notion that there is something wrong with
educating people for work. I have never, never, never, heard a clear
description of the problem. The concerns we frequently hear are vague
connections to preparing people for the assembly line or training welders or
some such thing. This is indicative of how far we have strayed from
understanding the nature of most work in the United States. Assemly line work
is an extraordinarily small portion of the work available today. In fact, we
probably preparing people for this level of work. That is doubly unfortunate,
because there just isn't that much of it.
Every business leader who has ever spoken on this issue has made essentially the
same point. We need people who can think clearly, articulate clearly, and take
action that is congruent with their thinking. We need people who can be
thoughtful, responsible citizens.
I challenge anyone to be specific about what we can incorporate into the
curriculum that would lead to intelligent, thoughtful citizens, _and_ would be
valuable to people in their work lives.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>