Creative education

Virginia Heffernan published a fascinating entry in Sunday's The New York Times, discussing Cathy N. Davidson's recent book on education, entitled "Now You See It." The title of Ms. Heffernan's piece is Education Needs A Digital-Age Upgrade, stating that upwards of 65% of today's school-aged children will grow-up to do work which today does not yet exist.

The point is startling when you think about it. Imagine a world in which 65% of the employment opportunities do not even exist today. That's a potentially massive shift in the structure of the labor market. But will that leave the many 30+ and middle-aged workers behind? Or will the growth in new employment opportunities simply add to today's market (in other words, there's work available for anyone who wants it)? My sense is that the market for manufacturing jobs will continue to fall, while technology and service positions will continue going higher, but that's only a hunch and beside the point really.

My interest in this matter is in education reform. At the end of her post, Ms. Heffernan suggests that education should focus on students acquiring digital literacy, aiming, "from grade-school on, to contribute to a wide range of wiki projects."

This has the makings of a great idea. One major problem with education (based upon my experience of course), is the emphasis upon grades and tests rather than creation and practical skills. I learned more German writing blogs and creating stories in the language than I ever learned for the sake of a test. My professor had us write dialogues almost everyday, which was a pain in the butt, but it helped with grammar and vocabulary a great deal.

Point is, we had a healthy balance between book-learning and creative expression, and it worked rather well. Technology allows people to contribute their gifts to the world in ways that were not possible even fifteen years ago. As increasingly more employment opportunities today require not only digital literacy but also a healthy dose of creativity, perhaps it would prove beneficial to introduce younger children to such habits earlier in life.

So there's much potential in such reforms, but obviously it would require good people and a sound policy to work. These are not assured. In any case, the spirit of the idea is a good one, and more work is needed to determine precise reforms to improve our schools from their industrial-era format of today. Something to consider.

Happy Monday :)