FINAL WORD
Challenging the structure of education
For many years , it has made sense for careers to follow a linear path . From early to later education , skills are gradually narrowed down and refined to serve a particular niche , with a particular job role serving as the end objective . The reason this particular ‘ pyramid ’ style of education has worked is because it could be mapped out to longer cycles in the demand for specific roles , which may have lasted for a generation or more .
Today , the demand for – and turnover of – skills is cycling faster than ever before and will continue accelerating in the years ahead . This not only poses a problem for linear structures of education and career development , but on an individual level , challenges the long-held association between our jobs and our identities . Jobs give us purpose and job roles provide a pathway for us to achieve that purpose . So , what happens when skills fall out of demand and our pathway to fulfilment stops short ?
The looming professional identity crisis
This is one of the main topics tackled by Heather E . McGowan and Chris Shipley in their indispensable guidebook to the future of work , The Adaptation
Advantage . The authors describe how identities typically carry a permanent professional stamp , i . e ., teacher , plumber or politician .
This , they argue , ‘ is the barrier to making the crossing from the past of work to the future of work . But cross we must because the future is coming at us faster than we can understand it ’.
Fear of the unknown is an instinct which keeps us alive and out of danger , but we cannot sit back and let it block the path to the future .
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