A Liberal Education - social requirements of technological innovations

School Administrator, March, 2001 by Denis P. Doyle

A broad range of studies is the only truly vocational education

In those societies that believe in progress, it falls to each generation to worry about education for the new economy. The new economy, of course, is simply the economy that's new to each generation.

In the early and mid-19th century, American political and education leaders worried about the demands of industrialization and immigration. We needed a work force that could follow instructions and mind its manners. Today we worry about readiness for high-tech employment.

But if worry is a constant, it is clear that a qualitative transformation in the new economy has occurred. Not only have we entered the post-industrial era, as Peter Drucker dryly notes, we have entered the post-capitalist era.

In the post-capitalist era, management is a science (thanks to Drucker) and knowledge reigns supreme. And the preferred instrument to impart knowledge--at least in the modern world--is schooling. That is why education is today truly mass education. We can leave no one behind. Oddly enough, this development was ushered in by the greatest economic crisis in history.

Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, only a small portion of the population needed education beyond grade school. Simple literacy--the ability to sign one's name, read the Bible, follow simple instructions, figure out a train schedule and place a Sears and Roebuck catalogue mail order--was enough for most people.

Indeed, as Milton and Rose Friedman point out in their 1962 classic Capitalism & Freedom, only in the modern era has simple literacy ceased to have marketable value. In the developing world, scribes-for-hire are available to help guide illiterates through the maze of written language. (A poignant portrayal of this enduring practice is the centerpiece of the masterful Brazilian movie, "Central Station.")

Work Force Evolution

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Second World War. In America at least, high school enrollments reached all-time highs in the 1930s. School attendance (after grade school, at least) was counter-cyclical. The worse the economy, the longer kids stayed in school. They did not do so because it improved one's employability, but because there was precious little to do otherwise. The highest levels of unemployment ushered in the highest levels of education to that point in our history!

Along came the war. The most striking event on the home front was the appearance of Rosie the Riveter, who was turned into a pop-art icon by Norman Rockwell's famous portrait of the same name. The work force was transformed. Not only were technical demands higher, women joined the work force in unparalleled numbers.

Women, of course, always had played a key role in the economy, but out of sight. Women's work was typically off the books, out of the public eye, in the home, farm or small-business back office. Indeed, in the words of a folk song, "a woman's work was never done." And only rarely was it compensated with cash income. But the war effort turned Rosie into a mainstay of the economy and she never returned to the domesticity she had left behind.

Not surprisingly, America's industrial might fueled a post-war boom in vocational education.

Equally unsurprisingly, America's love affair with information technology is fueling a structurally similar boom today. So great is the demand for trained IT workers that our schools cannot keep up. Hard on the heels of Bill Gates' Congressional testimony lamenting the shortage of IT workers, the Immigration and Naturalization Service increased the number of H-1B visas from 20,000 to 200,000 per year. (H-1B visas are for non-immigrant aliens in a specialty profession.) If we can't r train our own IT workers, we'll import them.

But as important as technology workers are, more important are technology users, all 28l million of us. Rare is the American who can repair or understand the workings of a modern automobile, telephone, television or PC, yet users are ubiquitous. They are everywhere because--thanks to clever technology workers--the technology is so user-friendly. Thus it ever was.

Before Charles Kettering invented the self-starter, the hand-cranked automobile was user-unfriendly in the extreme. Indeed, the Economist magazine (in its 20th century reprise issue) reported a turn-of-the-last-century prediction that few automobiles would sell because the pool of trainable chauffeurs was so small.

If user-friendliness is the key to widespread technological penetration, what education is needed for the emerging high-tech world? It is tempting to think that the ticket to future success will be technology training. But as I have suggested, more important than tech workers are tech users, but not just because their numbers are so great.

Technology, whether the water wheel of Archimedes, Guttenberg's moveable type, Ford's mass-produced automobile or Chester Carlson's Xerox copier, is simply a tool. A fancy tool perhaps, a complex tool often, but a tool nonetheless. It is not an end in itself. Knowing the purposes to which it should be put is more important than how it works. People do not drive or phone or FAX at random. They are purposeful. So, too, they should be educated for a purpose.