Teaching Tip #9

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #9

What is school for?

Seth Godin believes we are not answering this question.  In fact, are we even asking it?  

He argues that school used to be for preparing students to excel in a factory based economy.  If we were going to produce products in a mass production, consumer goods economy, we need people to work in the plants on the assembly lines.

He argues that school used to be for creating consumers.  If we were going to produce products in a mass production, consumer good s economy, we not only need people to work in the plants but we need people to ultimately buy the products produced.

In 1911, the majority of Americans owned one or two pairs of clothes and one pair of shoes.  Can you imagine that today?  Plus, most of the clothes and shoes were home made.  

To pull this off, there needed to be a huge shift.  And schools were created to aid that shift.

But schools no long need to be for that today.  Do they?