Re: education and work

[aburke5054@aol.com]

 Leaving the article aside, I still don't understand where you're coming from. Considering the two mid-20s that came to your house, the exterminator probably learned on the job, but the satellite tech could very well have come through a tech program in a community college -- that would count as a path through school, wouldn't it? I don't understand the rest. Some people undoubtedly expect schools to prepare people for the world of work, others expect schools to prepare people to be "active citizens in a democracy," maybe some expect schools to prepare people for "rich emotional, social, and community lives after work." By some people's lights schools will surely be falling down somewhere in those areas. But doesn't it come down to expectations - whether we expect government to sort it out for people or expect people to sort it out for themselves?
 
 Art 
  
 -----Original Message-----
 From: gbracey1@verizon.net
 To: arn-l@interversity.org
 Sent: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 3:37 PM
 Subject: [arn-l] education and work
 
  Art,   The point was that the article assumed the basic purpose of education was to prepare people for jobs. An article some years ago might have carried the title "Our Schools Have Kept Us Free"--which, in fact, is the title of an article by Henry Steele Commager.   I think that is totally wrongheaded and until recently so did most people. The emphasis was much more on preparing people to be active citizens in a democracy. American workers have long been either the most productive or among the most productive in the world. If schools are failing, it's because they're failing to prepare people for rich emotional, social, and community lives after work.    Yesterday, one person came to defend our house against termites. Another to correct a problem in our satellite TV reception. Both were, I guess, in their mid-twenties. That is to say, of an age that schools could not possibly have prepared them to use the technologies that they were using to provide their services.   JB     
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