CLASSROOMS ARE LIKE CONSTRUCTION SITES – MESSY, CHAOTIC, OVERWHELMING – EVEN SCARY SOMETIMES!

(Real Radical Reform & Relevant Solutions)

Two of my favorite shows on Pacifica Radio confirmed what many of us have long suspected –  education must be completely restructured and repurposed. The shows were The Ralph Nader Hour and Richard Wolff’s Economic Update. Unlike the film Waiting For Superman, neither program focused on charter schools, or on schools themselves.

They focused on our really messed up economy, particularly on hard-hit areas like Appalachia, the Midwest, and rural areas, and on a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Statistics predicting that well paying jobs will be sent off shore, while the fastest growing sector here will be low-paid home health and personal care providers. That really hit home. I provided  In-Home Care for our younger son for 40 years. After after countless marches with our unions, legislative visits and testimonies, my wages soared to a high of $12.50! (I was fortunate to have additional resources – most don’t!)

Our nation has spent trillions on education, but we’re devolved into a country that regards technical training (detailed and expensive, but technical nevertheless) as the primary purpose of education.

Even there we’re failing. Only one-third of college graduates currently land jobs that require a four-year degree. The rest struggle in low-skilled, low-paying positions.

Many cynics feel this is fine, it’s the way the system’s supposed to work. After all, they say, everybody who’s anybody knows that public schools were invented to convert droves of immigrants fleeing to our shores into passive pools of docile factory workers. That’s one way to look at the situation.

But job training is not about education in the traditional, classical sense of the term. Even if it were, it’s failing to strengthen our country. Because the Digital Revolution has massively increased job insecurity. Over the next two decades, 50 % – 80% of jobs will be lost to globalization due to increased use of computers and robots.

Peter Drucker, the “founder of modern management” and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, predicted that universities won’t survive. “The Future is outside the traditional campus, outside traditional classrooms.”

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