Present-day academic curricula assume that students will naturally develop the skills and dispositions employers seek as they matriculate through the school system. But nothing could be further from the truth. Knowledge remains inert unless it’s activated with deliberate, purposeful experiences. As educators, though we may not be able to dictate statewide or national curricula, we can still identify which parts of the curriculum are best suited to develop the essential dispositions to ensure these attributes receive the time and attention they deserve. Intentional, integrated professional development helps teachers recognize how to activate these skills inside and outside the classroom. There’s no reason teaching and learning have to be so isolated.
A Farewell to Average
Every segment of society is changing quickly. A major driver of this change is the free, always-open internet. New ideas zip across the planet at warp speed, creating an international network of connectedness. Back in 1874, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone. It took seventy-five years for the telephone to reach fifty million users, the coveted mark of a technological revolution (Interactive Schools, 2018). Comparing this with the acceleration of other new technology reveals a trend. The radio reached the fifty million user mark in thirty-eight years. The television—which was initially deemed too expensive to become a popular consumer product—made it into fifty million households in thirteen years (Interactive Schools, 2018). The internet hit fifty million users in four years. Twitter took a mere nine months (Interactive Schools, 2018). Additionally, innovation is no longer confined to think tanks in the Silicon Valley. Twelve-year-olds now write code, build mobile apps, and start their own businesses.
As technology advances, the education necessary to utilize it grows too. In essence, education and technology are in a bit of a race (Fadel, Bialik, & Trilling, 2015). Moreover, the notion of education for employment has moved away from routine, impersonal tasks toward more creative, complex tasks that only humans can perform. It no longer matters if a good idea comes from the top floor, shop floor, or someone’s garage. In That Used to Be Us, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Thomas Friedman and coauthor Michael Mandelbaum (2011) explain:
In this hyper-connected world, there is increasingly no “here” and no “there,” there is no “in” and no “out,” there is only “good,” “better,” and “best,” and managers and entrepreneurs everywhere now have greater access than ever to the better and best people, robots, and software everywhere. This makes it more vital than ever that we have schools elevating and inspiring more of our young people into those “better” and “best” categories, because even “good” might not cut it anymore and “average” is definitely over. (p. 106)
Experts say there’s never been a worse time for people with “ordinary” skills to be looking for work (Tucker, 2017). This is because computers and automated systems perform “ordinary” tasks at extraordinary speed. The ability to learn new things, adapt to changing environments, and do imaginative work is the gold standard for high-demand, high-wage employment. While smart may get an applicant in the door, it won’t move him or her past the lobby (Friedman & Mandelbaum, 2011). Students need a sound academic foundation coupled with an ability to see beyond the obvious to recognize emerging trends and patterns, no matter what field or passion they may decide to pursue.
The Any-Collar Workforce
Despite huge employment shifts in the later part of the 20th century, claims that all of America’s blue-collar jobs have gone to Mexico or that the majority of white-collar work is being outsourced to India are simply untrue (Paquette, 2017). Also untrue are stories that it’s only a matter of time before U.S. workers are replaced by robots. While organizations are increasingly using technology to automate existing processes, the majority is upgrading structures to maximize the value of both humans and machines (Agarwal, Bersin, Lahiri, Schwartz, & Volini, 2018). The goal is to complement what people do, not replace them.
As we think about preparing students for the workforce of tomorrow, we need to consider the skills and dispositions that will guarantee a symbiotic relationship among employees, machines, and consumers. Today’s workforce is a dynamic ecosystem, where employee-employer relationships are redefined in a variegated labor market (Agarwal et al., 2018). So, let’s take a look at the changing skills and dispositions needed for the white-collar, blue-collar, camouflage-collar, and no-collar occupations of the future.
White-Collar Workers
Our doctors, lawyers, engineers, pilots, programmers, bankers, and teachers must be nimble and flexible. In these fields, thinking and learning are constant since information changes so quickly. Rather than spending time looking for more efficient ways to do old work, employers ask their white-collar workers to innovate and invent entirely new ways to do the work (Friedman & Mandelbaum, 2011).
Kaiser, the largest health care system in the U.S., is one of many companies leading the way in reimagining white-collar work. Its coordinated, connected, and convenient patient care model allows people to see their doctor, get an X-ray, have blood drawn, and pick up a prescription all in the same building (Levine, 2017).
When Kaiser opens its first school of medicine in 2020, students will see patients and interact with families in their very first year. One of only a handful of medical schools in America not connected to a university, the California-based provider has also decided to waive tuition for every student in its first five graduating classes. Using a case-based curriculum, medical students will be assigned to study groups and teams of specialists, primary care doctors, nurses, and therapists. In these “integrated clerkships” there is no separation of science and application as students learn it, see it, and practice doing it. Kaiser’s goal is to ensure physicians-in-the-making become aggressive champions for their patients in every field of medicine—no matter where they make their careers (Goodnough, 2019).
Blue-Collar Workers
Our machinists, mechanics, production line workers, farmers, miners, and transportation workers must possess a clear understanding of how their jobs add value wherever they are in the company chain. A sense of presence and expertise in human interaction is necessary for blue-collar workers to share their ideas for making a product better. In the latter part of the 20th century, workers in these trades generally performed manual tasks that called for limited knowledge or critical thinking. Today’s blue-collar workers, however, are expected to function more like “technical careerists” than cogs on an assembly line where conveyer belts dictate the momentum (Wilke, 2019, p. 3).
One company that has managed to transform its production model is American conglomerate DuPont. Founded in 1802 as a gunpowder mill, DuPont is one of the most sustained industries in the world. With a vast portfolio of products including Nylon, Teflon, Mylar, Lycra, and Kevlar, the company has revamped its employee development programs to reflect changing needs (Ponzo, 2013). In the past, employees learned a set of tasks and repeated those tasks over and over again. Today, engineers and line operators work side by side to solve problems, improve production time, and make decisions