Hope Your Education Pays the Bills
Posted: Sunday, May 24, 2009
by Mogama
http://www.mogama.info
In our high school math class we suspected that we would never need at least 90% of what our math teacher was teaching us, though he kept warning us that our lives would tank if we didn't pass trigonometry.
Well, our suspicions were 100% correct, and our teacher, bless his good heart, was all wrong. All of my friends are getting along in life just fine, and, in 2.5 decades, we haven't run into a trig problem this side of the math class.
This advice may come too late for this year's graduates, but here it is anyway: Discover how you are designed and what your dreams are. Then tailor your education to your goals in life.
Education should turn the educated into a problem solver. Education is best when it is targeted. Aim your education at a target, or you might end up with good-for-nothing education. Why are you a student? Why do you want to take that class? What will you do with the education? What need will it meet? What problems will your knowledge solve? Until you know what you'll use your education for, you may not yet have a good enough reason to invest time and money in that course of study. There is such a thing as worthless information or useless education.
When I talk to a student in high school or college, I often ask, "So what field are you going into?" Most of the time the youngster has no clue. Some students graduate from college and still don't know what they'll be when they grow up. Sixteen years of education and they have not the foggiest idea what it's for!
What difference it would make if students, starting in middle school, would be guided towards a career path? What if instructors began to tailor that child's education to a foreknown line of work?
There should not be such a disconnect between what goes on in the classroom and what is needed for life in the marketplace. Our high schools should be churning out bright minds that businesses need and can instantly put to work that pays. With thousands of graduates pouring out of America's colleges, our companies should not be relying on thousands of technicians, engineers, scientists and doctors from foreign lands. Have we made the funding of irrelevant education the norm for our system of learning on which we spend billions every school year?
Should we not seek and get education that has something in common with the fields students want to work in? And should not this connection be made as early as possible during the learning curve? Why should parents and students spend so much more time and money after twelve years of high school to get post-secondary education that's actually worth something in the real world?
It should not take technical schools, trade schools or special training to solve the problems that beset us. Use your education to provide a service that people need. That's how education pays. When you can solve problems with your skill, you will begin to add value to anyone you work for, including yourself. When you know your stuff, the employer will think twice before firing you, unless you have a nasty attitude.
Can you have the right kind of education for the right kind of job and still be laid off? Yes. But when that happens, because you are well educated in your field, it won't be long before another employer scoops you up, unless your line of work has become obsolete. Or during your jobless period, you may realize that the combined impact of your training plus your experience has already prepared you to catapult you into that elite class of humans known as "entrepreneurs". In that case, you'll no longer be in the business of printing resumes and licking stamps to disburse them. Why? You'll be receiving resumes instead, making the hiring decisions.
If you become that new entrepreneur, then you were probably not in our high school math class. More than likely, you were busy learning something that's actually useful in the real world than trig, something more true to life than measuring the half shadows of bridges, towers and trees. You got education that pays the bills, and that's no trig.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Great article. Well done.I see your point to a degree. I would say that 90% of what you do in maths class is useless to 90% of people.However, I spent two hours only yesterday writing for a maths site to prove that quadratics can have negative solutions in the form ax^2 ±bx±c. Which is of very little -if any- use in the real world but to others is very important.Please log in to respond to this comment.Hey, Connor, your two-hour math assignment proves my point just perfectly. Thanks for making me laugh this hard. ~mogama~Please log in to respond to this comment.
Great article, Mogama. Math was my worst subject in school--literature, English, and writing--my favorite. Of, course, I had to struggle along with the rest of the class as our teacher also stressed that all problems could be solved mathmatically! Out in the real world, I worked with math on a daily basis, but I was lucky enough that the math whizzes of the world had already programmed my computer to perform all the complicated equations for me. So, you're right, I personally didn't need the math anyway as I went through my entire work career solving complicated equations without a glitch--thanks to all those who loved math and did it well.Thanks for sharing.SandraPlease log in to respond to this comment.That's the way it should work, Sandra: the math whizzes should be taught to do what they do best. After they've built the computers, using their math skills, the business-minded students would use the computers to run their stores or companies. And, of course, some of the customers would be the mathematicians who will need to buy computers from the entrepreneurs. That way every learner is focusing on his/her calling in life, and fewer students get useless instructions. Thanks for commenting. ~mogama~Please log in to respond to this comment.
Mogama,I give you five stars and if I could a big hug and a kiss! errr . . . man to man, of course. Ah hem. ;=) This is exactly what my business / coaching is dedicated to. I got into education (2 years k-12; 7 years college / university) merely as a stepping stone to my coaching business (and eventual building of schools that are mostly useful dealing with the practical) to study schools intimately to discern why they miss the mark by about, as you say, 90%. My book Education is a Waste of Time? The 7 key elements that wast 10 to 15 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars will soon be out along with my web site which will address this issue.I am amazed that teachers get so caught up in promoting their own positions (philosophically and monetarily) that they don't see the utter waste of time education is to the greatest degree. Or maybe the myth of education has been advocated so long that the lie for most has become the truth. What is popular is oftentimes not true but accepted out of fear of confrontation. The only fear I have is seeing students come to school for all those years unprepared and leaving it in the same fashion.Considering that we forget most of what we learn without constant review or use or, especially, without interest (ie: 80% of that read is forgotten in 24 hours never mind what's forgotten a few months or years after school) then education is a sham. It is a myth and a hoax and an outdated institution considering that the new employee will have 3 to five and some say up to 10 career changes. What's to be done? Go back to school every 4 years? I don't think so.
But this issue is complex and something I've been studying and writing about for years. Hopefully I can make a dent and create an awareness of a new education that is geared up for the modern world and not watered down for the "lowest common denominator" thus taking the guts and the reason for education out of education all together. Thanks for the insight and I'm glad that I'm not the only one that this is so obvious to. It certainly is a key issue, one that needs to be addressed promptly before more students end up wasting up to a decade before they realize that they've been duped.Please log in to respond to this comment.I really expect that you will be heard, Jeff, that your efforts to help redesign education will yield fruit. I look forward to reading your book, and I congratulate you for taking on this all-important cause. You've earned the voice to speak to this issue. I do wish your book will sell tons of copies to help spark real change in the educational system, not just more money thrown at classrooms that grossly mismatch graduates to the marketplace. ~mogama~Please log in to respond to this comment.Thanks Mogama, I love your articles and appreciate the dignity, class, and intelligence you bring to the Warp. Peace!Please log in to respond to this comment.
Good job here, Mogama. Maybe we would not have so many drop-outs if a more practical approach was taken.Please log in to respond to this comment.
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