An Alternate Witness

The following anonymous comment (that sounds an awful lot like it came from my sister!) was left on my blog entry "New Teachers Needed":

As a student (victim, survivor?) of the American school system and a current cubicle jockey, I must ask, what world are the children not prepared for? I am numbered and accounted for at every turn. Recently I was sent to the principal’s office (DMV) for not having my hall pass (work order for my car) signed. Never mind that I fixed the problem promptly. I have a job where I write- and I am expected to be empathetic and caring, within the proscribed limits. I must hold the position for a year before I am allowed to move up, no matter how fast my learning curve is. I am also struggling- as I did in elementary, middle, and high school, to simplify my responses to customer queries in order to cater to the least common denominator. I have been placed on a “Career Path” by my supervisor, who is currently working to get me more exposure to the same department on another site so that my year-end evaluation (grades) will be higher and stack up better against my peers. There are two main cliques that lunch together, and a few of us floaters that wander between groups. How is this different than school?

Yes, you're right, public schools definitely prepare us for the scenario you describe. But the "Shift Happens" video I posted before, or the TED speeches by Sir Ken Robinson and Ray Kurzweil all suggest that, while this model still works at T. Rowe Price, Merril Lynch and Ford, they won't sustain us too far into the future.

But wait a minute! It's not working for Merril Lynch and Ford, is it? And I don't think it's the way things are working in the most successful segments of Google, Zappos and other new companies that are taking the Twenty-First century by storm. Some of the newest success stories are a matter of wikinomics or built on the open-source model of Linux and OpenOffice.org.

I think, in fact, that you've gotten the point exactly. Public education, as it emerged out of the Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, has been designed to train and prepare students for the kind of corporate culture that has produced the cubicle jockey. In fact, however, this model is becoming obsolete, and while it may work for our generation, I believe Sir Ken Robinson when he says that it will not be relevant for today's first graders.