There was an article in The Atlantic magazine this week. It was on an age old tension in education. The topic is Vocational vs Liberal education - in a 21st century setting.
I see real merits in this tension, given this sustained global slowdown/recession we have had since 2008. But the downside of too much vocational emphasis, it seems to me is that we become a world of merchants.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/liberal-arts-colleges-are-failing-america/262711/
An early and first hand look at vocational education
In the 80s, my first job was to assist with the setting up a 'Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Center' funded by state of NJ under the very able leadership of my friend and mentor. My role was to be part of the team to set up the center by ordering the right computerized manufacturing machines to train folks, contribute to writing the curriculum and train shop floor workers from Boeing, Westinghouse and GE from the local Philadelphia manufacturing plants.
May I say that it was a very tough task - the last part. Folks who were deeply skilled with manual manufacturing techniques, using their hands to very artfully craft metal cutting tools (VERY SKILLED) were suddenly asked to put on their reading glasses peer at a computer screen and write code.
For me, it was a on the front line view of how an entire industry was going to disappear right in front of our eyes - and it did.
Value of a 4 year degree?
A four year college liberal education is perhaps not for everybody and as a society maybe we should not shove it down's people throats. Maybe there is a balance of liberal and vocational education. If we make this respectable as fair choices, as a society - then this pressure to spend $200+K for a college education just mitigates.
I think we have become collectively insane on this score!
The two graph lines of what colleges charge and what parents are willing to pay I think are near crossing. The latter line (parents) is also dropping with new technologies that are available such as Khan Academy, distance learning etc. We have yet to make full use of mobile and distance learning
Lifelong Learning
With baby boomers in US going to prove that longevity is a big/key demographic trend, they will redefine retirement. With a lot more time, energy and intent they will make life-long learning the new mantra. What will we do for our second act and perhaps third act are all being contemplated as we speak.
I sit on two boards that deal with aging trends and aging research. As opposed to my point earlier about Manufacturing, this trend is the opposite. Manufacturing fled the US. Aging related business opportunities are flocking to the US. This is where significant economic activity is going to be. Products for elderly, care for the elderly, managing finances for the elderly, public policy for the elderly - on and on and on....
On the topic of education, an idea in the 2010s might be to set up a 'Second Act University' !
Unintended Consequence
However, by focusing on just vocational education, I do greatly fear that we will become a world of merchants and traders. It don't think it is for just a few to be artists, philosophers and liberal thinkers. I think it is for all citizenry to be informed and take succor from the arts. And perhaps that habit needs to be inculcated early.
So in the final analysis, from my own personal point of view, I'd rather trade a few points on the GDP to get the young'uns the appetite for liberal thinking (in the apolitical sense of that word).
I see real merits in this tension, given this sustained global slowdown/recession we have had since 2008. But the downside of too much vocational emphasis, it seems to me is that we become a world of merchants.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/liberal-arts-colleges-are-failing-america/262711/
An early and first hand look at vocational education
In the 80s, my first job was to assist with the setting up a 'Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Center' funded by state of NJ under the very able leadership of my friend and mentor. My role was to be part of the team to set up the center by ordering the right computerized manufacturing machines to train folks, contribute to writing the curriculum and train shop floor workers from Boeing, Westinghouse and GE from the local Philadelphia manufacturing plants.
May I say that it was a very tough task - the last part. Folks who were deeply skilled with manual manufacturing techniques, using their hands to very artfully craft metal cutting tools (VERY SKILLED) were suddenly asked to put on their reading glasses peer at a computer screen and write code.
For me, it was a on the front line view of how an entire industry was going to disappear right in front of our eyes - and it did.
Value of a 4 year degree?
A four year college liberal education is perhaps not for everybody and as a society maybe we should not shove it down's people throats. Maybe there is a balance of liberal and vocational education. If we make this respectable as fair choices, as a society - then this pressure to spend $200+K for a college education just mitigates.
I think we have become collectively insane on this score!
The two graph lines of what colleges charge and what parents are willing to pay I think are near crossing. The latter line (parents) is also dropping with new technologies that are available such as Khan Academy, distance learning etc. We have yet to make full use of mobile and distance learning
Lifelong Learning
With baby boomers in US going to prove that longevity is a big/key demographic trend, they will redefine retirement. With a lot more time, energy and intent they will make life-long learning the new mantra. What will we do for our second act and perhaps third act are all being contemplated as we speak.
I sit on two boards that deal with aging trends and aging research. As opposed to my point earlier about Manufacturing, this trend is the opposite. Manufacturing fled the US. Aging related business opportunities are flocking to the US. This is where significant economic activity is going to be. Products for elderly, care for the elderly, managing finances for the elderly, public policy for the elderly - on and on and on....
On the topic of education, an idea in the 2010s might be to set up a 'Second Act University' !
Unintended Consequence
However, by focusing on just vocational education, I do greatly fear that we will become a world of merchants and traders. It don't think it is for just a few to be artists, philosophers and liberal thinkers. I think it is for all citizenry to be informed and take succor from the arts. And perhaps that habit needs to be inculcated early.
So in the final analysis, from my own personal point of view, I'd rather trade a few points on the GDP to get the young'uns the appetite for liberal thinking (in the apolitical sense of that word).
12 comments:
Very good and certainly adds to the discussion
Freakonomics or SuperFreakonomics had some material on the topic as well. It has been a while so I am paraphrasing.
There are several types of vocations where it is impossible to outsource, like an electrician, hairdresser or plumber and others that would be extremely challenging to outsource like car mechanic. As society has moved to a more liberal and service based economy the supply of these jobs is declining so their wages have been rising and are often the “small business job creators” we here about today
They are now coming up with innovative ways to outsource things we didn’t consider previously, like a visit with a medical specialist to review x-rays, CTs, etc. done by a local x-ray technician. Although an army of lawyers in Washington stands between this and reality, you could see a situation where simple legal work is outsourced to someone that was educated by an American institution. Possibly getting a reasonably distinguished law degree over the internet in the not too distant future.
I would in no way argue for more of a focus on vocation. I think a balanced approach with a possible emphasis on liberal education to reinforce the strength America continues to have on the rest of the world, innovation. However, diversification is my preferable strategy because we don’t want to tip the balance so far there is a limited supply of car mechanics. It costs enough already and who really knows what the future holds…
A timely topic to raise. I also see value in a broad-based, liberal arts education. It is my perspective that such "well rounded" education is the basis of the renaissance and the way of the Samurai. However, our businesses today thrive on hard skills. As an entrepreneur, I think 2 crucial things are missing from our "employment" picture:
1) flexibility on the part of the job seeker. People must be willing to try new roles, learn new skills and apply for new jobs as their career's advance. I know many smart people who are out of work due to their inflexibility in reclassifying themselves as an entrepreneur (vs a full-time employee), or a web designer (vs a graphics designer) or a carpenter (vs a cabinet maker)
2) flexibility on the part of the employers. When I graduated with my CS degree, the smartest & best companies to work for (Bell Labs, IBM, the NSA, the software startup I went to work for) looked at aptitude, not skills. All of the mediocre companies (like manufacturers or insurance companies) would come in and ask if I knew Fortran or "C" programming language. Even though I had those "hard skills", I could tell by the questions that the other companies were a better fit for me. Bell Labs or the NSA never asked once what programming language I knew. They wanted to know how I applied algorithms, how I solved problems, how I thought about the future of software design.
Today's employers need to get back to looking for aptitude and providing flex environments while our workers need to stop boxing themselves in and flexing into new, sometimes part-time roles. I just saw a special on Global 360 (Fareed Zakaria) that Norway has near full employment - but that a large # of workers are working part-time. If someone who is unemployed for a year (and there are plenty) had worked the last year at a fraction of their full capacity, they could be learning new skills, earning some money and staying fresh in the workplace.
As Walter Russell Mead and many others have noted, the education bubble – the result of Blue Model thinking and the notion that everyone should have a college degree – is about to burst. Hard to say what the higher education industry will look like after it pops. But it seems reasonable to assume that there will still be a place for a four-year liberal education. But it will be for a small minority who want to go into some sort of ‘intellectual racket’. Plus those who are either economically well-off or disinterested. There may still be a need for certain four-year professional degrees too from campus-dispensaries like today’s.
But combined these will be in the minority.
WRM, I and others think that in the future, the majority will look at higher education as an intermittent, life-long engagement with multiple institutions who together offer a smorgasbord of educational methods and credentialing programs for a JIT world.
And it’ll much, much cheaper than such an education is today – even when considered over a lifetime.
two fictional characters, Jack and Jill, and how differently they manage their lifelong learning program.
Jack won the genetic lottery (either wealthy parents willing and able to pay his entire tuition or a scholarship-earning IQ) and Jill didn’t (has to finance her own education and has limited career opportunities in her area). Let’s make them further polar opposites by also saying that Jack has no idea what he wants to do career-wise and Jill does, or perhaps, has only one viable career option for her set of circumstances. And let’s say that because of where she lives (the Detroit area) that opportunity is in manufacturing. But these manufacturing jobs are no longer the sort of robotic manual labor job of the past but rather are advanced manufacturing positions which require some technical engineering knowledge though not an engineering degree.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this simple example: Jack has the option, in fact the optimal option, of being entirely strategic with his post-high school educational choice. It would make sense for him to get a four-year liberal arts education with the hope that, through this educational experience of other life events during those four years, some life direction unfolds for him. And he can then, either through graduate school or technical training programs, get the tactical education he needs for the ‘next steps’ of his life plan.
Jill on the other hand needs to get tactical right away. She needs to get whatever basic credentials are needed to first get a job at the plant and then keep adding to her credentialing; which, btw, may over time go from technical engineering to business management courses. And let’s say, she’s getting those business management credentials because she’s seen as an up-and-comer with upper management potential. This is where a well-rounded or liberal arts education often comes into play. I’m a believer that, generally speaking, wisdom and intellectual range are important assets for success in senior management and leadership positions. In fact, such an education may be as critical to further advancement as was the entry-level engineering credential to get her first step on that career ladder.
The central point here being that the worst thing a young person could do is take on huge debts which can never be wiped away, even in bankruptcy, to get a degree that doesn’t lead immediately to a high paying career which can liquidate that debt.
In the future, autodidacticism may well become the norm, for both the Jacks and the Jills of this world, and all those in between. Especially when today’s e-readers are improved the point that they, along with this new autodidacticism, spur development of courses and programs designed to make the most of this new interactive, multimedia technology.
Imagine being able, at a click, to 1) see how others translated these classics, if that’s your thing, 2) getting all those notes and annotations that will help you to understand the anachronisms and historical references and, most interesting when one is reading such classics, getting future references to the passages or themes in these classics.
Now that’d be an education that would put Jill up at the top of the hill with Jack. And she’d not be up there to fetch a pail of water.
And there’d be no need for either of them to lessen our GDP in the process of getting atop that hill.
Tim - I enjoyed your above note about Jack and Jill piece tremendously - you are right on point.
A dark thought did run thru my mind though. Jill is suffocated by drudgery (not far fetched in these hard economic times) and has no time or an earlier implanted trigger to explore the larger ideas. And Jack spends his dad money yatching and partying. :-(
The Jill of today in her late teens or early twenties may not have time or even an inclination to broaden her education. Especially, as you say, not in these hard economic times which force one to think practical and short-term. But who knows about a decade or two from now. Let’s hope the economy will not still be in the toilet then.
And it’s not uncommon for trust babies, as you know, to see a liberal arts education as simply the normal way to defer life and party hearty. The Jack I used to make my point however is not that guy.
Jack & Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack sat down
With a frown
And paid Jill to play porter!
:-)
This is a relevant article in yesterday's WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/PjLMlI
Btw, I think you had two narratives going on in your essay: wealth/health/aging/lifelong learning and vocational/liberal arts. And the former dominated the latter. I would have liked to have read more about the vocational vs. liberal arts. The attached article talks about the value of "original thinking," something not inspired the Chinese and Indian higher-edurcation system.
Firstly, the distinction between vocational and academic learning itself is irrelevant ! Learning has to involve understanding at any level. Unfortunately what started as an in depth understanding versus somewhat less rigorous understanding, has degraded into, turning the screw ( without knowing what for) versus an in depth analysis of a problem. I struggled all my teaching years, how to make students understand things needed to make a proper judgment even if they do not know all the intricate ( in my case, the mathematical analysis) complexities of a problem. Putting it in a simple way, if the student does not know why he /she can not use a chalk piece in a laser cavity in sted of the laser rod, his education is useless. He need not know exactly what the laser rod does. But he must know why a chalk piece can not be used. You are right. Higher education, involving in depth study of a subject is expensive and may not be needed for everybody. But education that involves a complete understanding of the issues involved is essential and need not be expensive. Secondly, the lesser dignity attached to vocational education must be eradicated. As much as great analytical experts are needed to the progress of science and technology ( even other subjects), the people who have to 'man' these technologies are equally essential. A proper balance of curriculum and rapport between the higher level graduates and the vocational school students is a must. It is essential for a rapid development and progress of the knowledge of the world.
So true!
But we also need folks more well versed in math, engineering and science. Even with an 8% plus unemployment rate, there is only 1 candidate for every three mat/engineering/science jobs.
I find RVK's response to the topic right on the money! A balanced approach is the best.
I’m a firm believer that the right kind of undergraduate liberal education provides the best basis for adaptive skill development down the line, both at work and in graduate education. Knowledge workers need to learn how to think, create, and communicate. With those building blocks, they can rapidly evolve their careers to contribute in multiple different ways over their working lives. I think it’s a lot harder for an aircraft mechanic or machine tool operator to adapt, when his or her job changes dramatically or goes away entirely.
I think the article in the Atlantic (and many other critics of a liberal arts education) obfuscates the issue by focusing on the ‘humanities’ as an economically useless field of endeavor. But most kids getting a liberal arts education major in subjects like economics and politics, which lead directly to practical and economically viable professions, like banking, consulting, law, etc. The remainder want to contribute to society in a different way (e.g., art, entertainment, academia), where the odds of obvious economic contribution may be lower but the opportunity to enrich our lives and culture may be higher.
I agree with his point that liberal arts schools should continue to offer practical education opportunities for their students. Though I don’t know that entrepreneurship is the only one. It strikes me that the most successful entrepreneurs didn’t need to go to school to learn how. They just went out and did it!
I also agree with your point below, that a four-year college education isn’t right or necessary for everyone. My guess, though, is that folks who get more of a vocational education early in life may have to repeat that sort of training multiple times over the course of their careers, as the mix and nature of vocations evolve. And they may suffer periods of prolonged unemployment, as they make transitions. Whereas a more flexible, adaptable liberal arts graduate may be able to stay current and relevant on the fly.
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