The Myth of The Career – Education Is Horked Part 2

This is Part 2 in my continuing series, Education Is Horked. You can find Part 1 here. It is my hope to get people thinking about the tectonic shift happening under our feet and what part education plays in our ability to embrace the new world we find ourselves in.

Fast forward five years to a movie theatre in Tulsa, OK. I was a sophomore in college, I was directionless, had no idea what I wanted to do, but I was watching the movie Wall Street. I had never one time thought about being a stockbroker or moving to New York to live that kind of life until I saw that movie. I walked out of the theatre that night knowing that I wanted to be the next Bud Fox. I changed my major the next year to finance and began a love affair with courses like economics and money and banking.

What do these two stories have in common? I chose neither sports journalism or finance as a career. I looked at a number of colleges specializing sports journalism, but the constant question I asked myself was “How will I get a job doing this?” I couldn’t see the path. In college, I made a similar decision. Somewhere in the middle of my first senior year ( yes, there were two of them ), I switched to accounting as a major. Why? At the time, it was extremely difficult to land a job in high finance ( or so I perceived ), and accounting would land me that perfect job at the big accounting firm.

My story is not uncommon, I am guessing. At least not for my generation. We all had things we dreamed of doing, but we all had parents that had done the same thing for years and years. My father is a college professor. He has been for over 40 years. The people in the town I grew up in all did the same thing for year after year. Lots of them worked at factories, or at tree cutting companies, or other similar vocations. The message was clear, both at school and at home. Whatever you go to college for, that is what you will be doing. So, you need to pick something you can make a living at.

I blame myself for a good bit of my thinking. I should have had the vision to think bigger, to take the risks, to just do what I wanted to do and figure it out as I went. I also think that I was a product of my environment to some extent. I took the same classes as everyone else, regardless of what we were all good at. We all were required to take math, science, and history because that was what was offered. I remember one classmate was an exceptional carpenter. There was nothing he could not build. But, when it came to the rest of school, he was mocked by his teachers for not having the chops to write a good paper or solve a trig problem that was “so simple.”

Here we are in 2010, and education remains largely unchanged in the last 50-75 years. We go to school for the same amount of time each day, we have the same classes ( or maybe even fewer because of budget cuts to the fine arts ), and we still learn more or less the same way. This is the case regardless of public or private school. How is it that possible? Nothing is the same as it was 50 years ago, and yet we still teach the same things. What is the driving force behind education today? It is, in my observation, teaching kids how to fit in. If you know the basic subjects, you will be able to find “a job.” If you have a degree, you can start “your career.” If you have a PhD, you can teach people how to do both of these things.

The myth of the “career” has ended. The chances of you doing the same thing for 40 years are none. A six-month spike in oil can put a whole city out of work. A country can become an economic powerhouse in ten years, and put entire industries out of work in another. In response to this environment, what has changed in education? How are we teaching kids that are in second or fourth grade to be able to adapt? Good question.

I am a varsity basketball coach for a small private school here in Raleigh. Some of the teams we play are in very rural, very poor areas of the state. I was talking to the coach of one of these teams before a game not too long ago and asked what had happened to their team. They had gone from a conference powerhouse to essentially a middle school team in the span of two years. His explanation was simple. The factories that once supported this town ( whether textiles or meat packing ) had all closed. There was, quite simply, nothing left for people to do. Therefore, people could not afford private school tuition anymore. As I sat there looking at the kids on the other team and listening to the coach, I was struck by the fact that there was a gym full of kids that had little or no chance to make it out of this small town. It was not because they were not intelligent enough, but simply because they are not being taught their way of life is dying and that they must start now ( regardless of their age ) to plan for something else.

It is our task as those raising the next generation to inspire and effect radical change. Never has it been easier to be an artist and have your work seen by millions. Never has a group of readers been more accessible for you to write for. Never has the research on how to grow your own food and become an organic farmer been more available. We must stop training our kids to think that the only professions available are doctors, lawyers and accountants.

Instead, let’s raise the next generation as a deep, rich pool of entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, writers and philosophers. Let’s teach them that helping to solve problems for people half way around the world is just as important as having a big house and a job. They will find a way to make a living at it, I promise. Do you think anyone told the guy in this video below that he could work at a public school and have his life’s work be seen by millions, and in the process inspire a whole new generation of musicians? I doubt it.

If you could teach one subject to a group of kids once a week, what would it be? Got your answer? Good. Now find a way to do it. For me, it was coaching basketball. Share your knowledge. You have no idea how badly it’s needed.