Are schools preparing students for the new workforce?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

My inspiration for starting this thread is a documentary, Most Likely to Succeed, that ran last week at the AFIDOCS film festival in DC. I did not see it.

One Potato Productions - Greg Whiteley

Most Likely to Succeed

Are schools preparing students for the new workforce?

By Lane Anderson, Deseret News National Edition
laneanderson
[e-mail]
Published: Saturday, May 23 2015 5:00 a.m. MDT
Updated: Saturday, May 23 2015 9:01 a.m. MDT

Will there be jobs for college grads in the future — and if so, which jobs? ... Fear has mounted in the wake of sluggish post-recession job growth that has not treated college grads well. A recent study by Georgetown University shows unemployment among college grads was at 7.5 percent in 2012, only 2.5 percent better than the rate for non-graduates.

Paranoia is also fueled by the automation of jobs — including white collar-jobs like secretarial, bookkeeping, and paralegal work — which, economists say, will only increase. Research from Duke and the University of British Columbia shows that jobs that consist of routine tasks dropped dramatically by 25 percent during the recession, and they're not coming back.

These twin phenomena have policymakers, educators and students alike scrambling to figure out which jobs will be in demand in the near future — but Greg Whiteley says that's the wrong way to look at the problem and that we are asking all the wrong questions.

Whiteley is director of Most Likely to Succeed, an education documentary that asks: Why has our education system stayed the same while our economy has drastically shifted with technology? The film kicks off with a brief history lesson of the U.S. education system, which was largely geared toward producing factory workers for the industrial revolution. Classrooms haven't changed much since then, the film argues, though the world is changing at break-neck speed.

[jtuck004]

1. Haven't they heard? Unemployment is down to the low 5s now. No worries.

And if they have to default on their student loans it can be taken from their taxes or social security.

So, really, they should just go back to bed. In their parents house, Where they are living at 36, with the only prospects for home ownership ever being if their parents die and no one find out.

[darkwing]

2. Home ownership is overrated.

I owned a home once. But it was out in the boondocks because the prices near the city were too high. It totally wasn't worth it. I sold it and am now a happy renter living in the city.

[jtuck004]

3. That's what plantation owners used to tell the people they owned...

And it's a great philosophy for keeping people in servitude.

[darkwing]

4. What?

Plantation owners told the people they owned that they were moving to the city because commute times were too long? LOL

[jtuck004]

5. You help me remember "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere". Voltaire.

But now dog poop is more important than such drive by drivel.

bye.