These first three ideas are extremely relevant in today's world. The idea of outsourcing jobs from the United States to other countries, where work could be done more cheaply, has been a contentious issue for some time now. It is interesting to see things continue to shift...for example, factories moving from coastal China to the western, inner regions of China and some US companies moving their factories back to the United States for reasons of quality control process in conjunction with the narrowing cost benefit of outsourcing. Whatever your opinion on the subject, it is clear that in today's workforce one needs to be flexible (mentally, horologically, and sometimes, unfortunately, fiscally) and current on the latest developments in one's field. Even in technology! Combine that with the concept that today's students will be working in fields that don't exist yet, and you have a major shift in the importance and focus in education today.
While these facts and ideas aren't brand new and probably not shocking to you, I thought about this recently because of something I heard on the radio. A proponent of locavorism and whole foods was talking about the average US citizen as having "outsourced" significant portions of their lives. He meant that we drive cars most of us don't know how to fix, many of us live in houses though we don't know how to do major maintenance or renovation projects, we consume information that some of us either can't or don't know how to verify, and many of us eat food that we don't know how to grow. He saw this "outsourcing" of daily life as a key to the growing popularity and civic significance of the growth of farmers markets, locavorism, and ultimately, people starting their own gardens to grow food.
Is the local and whole foods movement an example of people's (perhaps subconscious) desire to un-outsource parts of their lives?
What do these things mean for education? For one, teaching people (in most cases, children) how to learn and maintain their enthusiasm for learning is paramount. Also, encouraging and developing problem solving, applying concepts and processes to new places or problems, whether at the elementary, high school, or college level. Helping students understand how they learn, and how to compensate for and develop their learning style weaknesses. At any age, developing their executive function, their ability to organize, prioritize, manage their time, stay flexible so as to avoid getting "locked up" or "paralyzed" by the anticipation of difficulty.
This means a lot for educators...are they teaching in ways that can be outsourced? Are some teachers mostly providing information that can be looked up on line, while spending less time inspiring students and helping them grow as learners and people? While this model of providing basic information and teaching students how to develop their memorization skills, understanding of common processes (mathematical, scientific, historical, etc.), and practical skills, vocational and everyday may have worked a number of years ago, it is crucial that today's teachers anticipate the change that students will see in their lifetimes. They must teach students how to continue to educate themselves, see connections between the past, present, and future, and wok with the entire faculties of schools to produce well-rounded people who have a greater cognitive and emotional understanding of themselves as they move on into college and beyond.
