Average is Officially Over

This was a long time coming, but with yesterday’s announcement there will most likely be a new tax code implemented this coming year, which will squeeze the middle class a little more, and I think it is safe to say average is officially over.  I say this is a long time coming because, as educators, we have been aware of the signs for at least the last decade if not more.  Specifically, during the mid to late 20th century in the United States, there were opportunities to succeed if you were committed and worked hard. In fact, this became the mantra of my generation (Generation X), and the state of the union led us to believe that a public education would provide us with what we needed to be successful once we graduated. However, that has changed. 

Thomas Friedman touches upon this shift in his book “Thank You for Being Late”.   In the mid-late 20th century there were many factors that favored the “average” worker in America.  “America dominated the world economy...Outsourcing was limited...the push and pull of globalization was mild...Companies could afford in house training of their workers...because the pace of change was slower, whatever you learned in high school and college stayed relevant and useful much longer...machines, robots, and software had not advanced to the point...where they could not undermine the bargaining power of both industrial and service unions” (Friedman, 2016)  As teaches, we saw this coming and, for the sake of our young people’s futures, were quick to agree with Linda Darling-Hammonds assessment that we must be working towards “preparing students to work at jobs that do not yet exist, creating ideas and solutions for products and problems that have not yet been identified, using technologies that have not yet been invented” (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 2).   What we didn’t realize is that included us as well.

Friedman points out that in the late 20th century there were high-wage/high-skilled jobs, high wage/middle-skilled jobs, and low-wage/low-skilled jobs.  In the 21st century, in this age of accelerations, “the high-wage/middle-skilled jobs have gone the way of Kodak film” (Friedman, 2016, p. 204).  The other two categories, at either ends of the spectrum, still exist, but the high-wage/middle-skilled jobs are being replaced by technology.  I point this out because, as educators, if we are to meet our charge of preparing young people for the 21st century, there needs to be a shift which parallels Friedman’s observations.  Teaching needs to shift from a high-wage/middle-skilled profession to high-wage/high-skilled profession.  When I say “middle-skilled” I am referencing a teacher centered didactic classroom in which the main pedagogical practice is a transfer of knowledge to our young people as if we are filling an empty vessel.  As I mentioned in “Is Education your Job, Career, or Calling”, teaching is not an easy job.  However, the skills needed to implement a “Curriculum Transfer Model” classroom are not the same as those of a “Preparing for Life Model” (See “Guilty as Charged”).   In my mind, the shift to “high-skilled” includes a shift to a becoming more diagnostic in the classroom and shifting to a more student centered classroom (see “Change a Practice, Change a Life”).    I don’t claim to know exactly what needs to be done in each classroom, at each grade level, at each school. However, I do agree with Friedman that “An on-demand world requires on-demand learning for everyone, accessible to anyone around the world, anywhere on your phone or tablet, and this really changes the definition of learning” (Friedman, 2016, p.205).  This new definition of learning requires a different approach to teaching.  

In a 2016 presentation at the Cleveland City Club titled Education in the Age of Smart Machines, Yong Zhao points out that “we did not strap rockets to a covered wagon in order to get to the moon”.  Instead we used a completely different approach to achieve this new goal.  I believe a similar shift in  approach can take place in the classroom, but it will require all of us to become more skilled in our profession.  This shift is also one in which education focuses more on how to help our students be more human.(see “Raising Young People as Human Beings…”) and therefore successful in the 21st century.  “In every major economic shift a new asset class becomes the main basis of productivity growth, wealth creation, and opportunity...In the agrarian economy, that asset was land...in the industrial economy it was physical capital...in the services economy it was intangible assets such as methods, designs, software, and patents...in today’s knowledge-human economy it will be human (italics added) capital- talent, skills, tacit know-how, empathy, and creativity...these are massive undervalued, human assets to unlock-and our educational institutions and labor markets need to adapt to that” (Friedman, 2016, p.207).  This is why on-line learning does not equate to an on-line education.  You can’t get an education, nurturing of those human assets, from a computer.  It has to happen in the classroom with caring highly skilled teachers utilizing  a student centered preparing for life model.  As educators, if we want to help our students make the shift we need to make it ourselves which means in order to properly prepare our young people and  meet their needs, average is officially over.

References

Darling-Hammond, Linda (2010).  The Flat World and Education.  New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Friedman, Thomas (2016).  Thank You for Being Late.  New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux