I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about what I want my students to get out of my class. When they leave middle school and go to high school, what skills do I want them to posses? What kind of person do I hope they will be when they leave high school? What will the job market look like after high school, and how can I get them closer to being prepared for life after school?
It’s been a tough thing to think about. How do you prioritize what is the most important? Do I give them exposure to a wide range of experiences? Do I still teach novels in my Language Arts classes or mix in more non-fiction texts? Do I bother with formal essays, a style they will need in high school but not later in life?
I don’t have the answers, but here’s what I have figured out so far. Students leaving high school are faced with a wide range of options and presenting college as the best option for all students is leading many to enter their early 20’s in massive student loan debt with just as many job prospects as they had before they left high school.
To be clear, I think college is the best option for a lot of students. There are many fields that require a specific degree specializing in that field like teaching, medicine, and law. However there are also an increasing number of jobs that don’t care about your college degree. They want trained job applicants, entrepreneurs, employees who can find problems and solve them without being asked. There are a lot of jobs that a certification program will get your foot in the door easier than a four year degree. Then there are the countless ways people can forge their own path and create their own business
I’m a huge fan of the StartEd Up podcast and one of the biggest things the host Don Wettrick stresses throughout is the rise of a gig economy (Air BnB and Uber for example) and contract work. Several recent Forbes articles describe this switch and surmise that by 2020 over 40% of the workforce will be involved in some form of gig economy or contract work. That’s over 40% of the workforce needing to rely more on their ability to find work, interact with clients, negotiate deals, etc. than their college credentials.
(Check out the podcast here: http://www.startedupinnovation.com/podcast/)
That’s a HUGE transition. This is the reality we need to be preparing students for. Yes, they may want to pursue a 4 year degree and that’s great. But our scholars deserve to know that that is just one of many different options. We need to show them what’s available and help them find the path that will get them where they want to go.
For more information about the gig economy check out these articles from Forbes:
Thanks for sharing..