Preparing kids for jobs in an unknown future
There’s a lot of teeth gnashing about how our kids aren’t going to be equipped for the workforce of the future. Should they all learn to code? Should they get a jump-start on the entrepreneurial life with lemonade stands and dog walking?
The world of work is changing and schools have an important role to play in preparing our kids for a future that we can’t fully comprehend. But a growing chorus of experts says most schools aren’t adapting their teaching methods quickly enough to turn out the kind of workers we need.
Kelly Gallagher-Mackay, an education activist, lawyer and former research director for the non-profit People for Education, is one of the people sounding the alarm. She has co-authored Pushing the Limits: How Schools Can Prepare Our Children Today for the Challenges of Tomorrow, along with veteran school principal Nancy Steinhauer.
“There’s a widespread recognition that not only the world of work but the broad social world is changing, and in some ways creating brand new problems for our children that we’ve never encountered before and that will need creative solutions,” says Gallagher-Mackay, now a professor of law and society at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Toronto mom of two.
“We know that 75 per cent of the jobs of the future haven’t even been invented yet, so we need to think about how do we use our skills to provide students with a foundation for the unknown.”
She points to an idea established by a group of tech and government representatives called the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. It says schools need to teach “4Cs” — creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication — in addition to the “3Rs” (reading, writing and arithmetic).
“Nancy and I would add citizenship to that list. Those are the skills that help you take knowledge and put it into action in the real world, in our communities, solving problems in our homes and also in the world of work.”
Pushing the Limits highlights Canadian schools that are doing a good job of this in the hope that other schools will emulate those innovative programs.
George Webster Elementary School in Toronto’s east end is among them. Gallagher-Mackay says the lower-income school has made “amazing strides” through something called the Model Schools for Inner Cities program, which aims to prevent challenges such as poverty and language barriers from standing in the way of opportunity. It does this using a complement of innovative teaching methods and social supports.
Gallagher-Mackay says the program includes a lot of professional development where educators are asked to examine their own expectations of kids from tougher circumstances, namely whether they expect less of them academically. The result has been real gains in test scores, but also some notable problem-solving.
For example, all students were asked to identify what they thought was the biggest problem at the school. The conclusion was that the playground is a bit of a tough environment, home to conflicts between kids.
“They turned the problem of the playground into a math problem for the whole school, and they tied it to the data and probability strand in the curriculum,” she says.
Each class did a research project on what was happening in the schoolyard, mapping and surveying who plays where and who wasn’t allowed in certain areas. A group of Grade 6 students then got data about discipline occurrences, identified a pattern and zeroed in on morning recess as the time of day with the most difficulties.
“They went to the staff meeting, made a presentation and said they thought the supervision should be changed so there’s more staff on the playground in the morning,” Gallagher-Mackay says.
The school followed the students’ recommendation and, sure enough, the number of discipline issues went down.
That’s the kind of connection all parents and teachers hope kids can make between what they’re learning in class and the challenges facing our communities.
Patty Alper, author of Teach to Work: How a Mentor, a Mentee, and a Project Can Close the Skills Gap in America, says businesses have a role to play in helping schools turn out the nimble problem-solvers our increasingly entrepreneurial world demands.
The Maryland-based business leader, part of a White House initiative to promote STEM careers, believes the education system needs to include a whole lot more realworld experience and mentoring.
“There’s nothing like that in schools right now. There’s not that room for vast innovation and failure.”
Alper created a program called Adopt-a-Class, which pairs businesspeople with classrooms for what she refers to as project-based mentoring. Students come up with entrepreneurial ideas and the mentors help see them through to fruition.
Without that kind of guidance, kids often start with a lot of enthusiasm then falter when they run into challenges, Alper says. “But by adding a mentor to the project they begin to have grit. The hypothesis might not work, but we’re not done. We’re going to finish it.”
The program has turned out a bunch of young CEOs in a broad range of business ventures from sewing cheerleading outfits to developing apps. “I had one student who had sold 32,000 cookies by the time he had turned 16. He was selling them at Target and at Giant Food,” Alper says.
She says her hope is that individual schools will begin dialogues with local businesses, invite them for coffee and sit around a table together to better understand where business is going and how to prepare students accordingly.
“We need to tear down the walls between the classroom and work.” Brandie Weikle writes about parenting issues and is the host of The New Family Podcast and editor of thenewfamily.com.