First there was some completely idiotic study that said students didn’t learn to think critically in college. Everybody talked about this stupid study because, apparently, people who criticize the analytical skills of others are incapable of realizing the simple truth that critical thinking cannot be quantified.
Now there is a competing study that says students do learn to think critically in college. Since this claim is as unprovable as the competing one, the study is just as worthless. Still, the debate rages on.
It is hilarious that people are still debating whether college is useful. It’s like they are collectively stuck in the reality of 30 years ago and are stupidly repeating the mantras that worked then. It is really cute, for instance, to see how often some particularly clueless person is repeating the adage of “Not everybody needs to go to college, of course. Some people can just start businesses right out of high school.” This statement is as outdated as shoulder pads in women’s business suits, yet many people are passionately devoted to it.
Given that today’s high school graduates overwhelmingly
– don’t know how to attach a file to an email;
– have no idea how to organize business correspondence;
– have never seen Microsoft Excel;
– do not speak any foreign language;
– are not sure what countries border the US;
– believe, at best, that “save the file with the .rtf extension” means “write the letters rtf in the file’s name.” At worst, they just refuse to do the assignment altogether because the instructions confuse them;
– cannot format a simple Word document;
– have the communication skills and the emotional maturity level of petulant kindergartners;
– think that the language and format of text messaging are appropriate in all contexts;
– can’t spell worth a damn;
– can barely focus on a single task for more than five minutes;
– believe that it is a duty of everybody older than them to adopt them emotionally on the spot;
– and so on and so forth*,
I have to ask, what kind of businesses will they be opening with this impressive skill set?
The world has changed in the past 30 years and, in case nobody noticed, there is no employment left for people who can only provide manual labor. We are moving to the kind of society where at least one college degree will be needed to have a semi-decent job. Since the secondary education is not doing its job and parents like to infantilize their children to impossible degrees, this moment will be here sooner. It would have arrived either way (because of the technological revolution) but the lousy quality of secondary education makes it happen much sooner.
* Yes, I know you are not like this, otherwise you would not be reading this blog. Even though you have managed to become a very special and highly literate young person (and kudos to you), the sad truth is that the secondary education system and the fashionable parenting strategies do not prepare today’s young people to negotiate the job market successfully at the age of 18.
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