Knowing more
about ourselves is
fundamental
What is the
educational pathway
that will prepare our
young people to not
just succeed, but
thrive, in every aspect
of their lives? The
answer is self-literacy.
8
Leadership
Until about 200 years ago,
education was mostly about survival. The
average person learned how to feed and
shelter themselves and not get eaten by
bears.
Enter the Industrial Revolution. Starting
around 1800, the focus of modern educa-
tion shifted from survival to work. Society
became more mechanized; jobs moved from
farm to factory; people migrated from coun-
try to city. New skills were needed to par-
ticipate in the new labor force, and thus was
born modern education.
In a few short decades, we evolved from
one-room schoolhouses to a trillion-dollar,
federally mandated education system. The
results have been astonishing.
Literacy rates have risen from barely 10
percent in the early 1800s to nearly 90 per-
cent. College attendance has risen from
less than 10 percent of adults to almost 60
percent, and this doesn’t take into account
students seeking education through ap-
prenticeships and other forms of on-the-job
training.
What’s surprising, though, is that for al-
most two centuries, the goals of education
have remained essentially the same: to teach
kids to participate in the workforce.
As the jobs have changed, the curriculum
has responded. To engines, add integrated
circuits; to biology, add biotech; to calcu-
lus, add computer science. As technology
increasingly rules the world and software
controls much of our daily lives – think cell
phones, cars, gaming – a more robust sci-
By Tim Howes