Forbes
Preparing The Workforce For The Next Generation
By: Rod Berger
The year is winding down, and it’s a good time for us to take stock of our accomplishments from this year and begin writing our goals for the next. I, like many in the business world, have been in the habit of writing my annual goals for many years.
For me, it often requires some soul-searching. What is possible? What will benefit my family? My employees? What can be accomplished? What should be accomplished? For the near term? For the far term? Sometimes it is a continuation of goals from years past. And sometimes, this exercise requires that I rethink my assumptions and make wholesale changes based on the changing landscape.
I write about the intersection of business and education. In years past, this was an intersection that was straight-forward to navigate. But the landscape has changed. Industry has changed and it’s now changing rapidly, moving so far ahead of education that the intersection of business and education will soon be miles away. So far away that our learners are in danger of never seeing it. If our schools don’t make some course corrections now, we may have a generation of students who are wholly unprepared for the world in which they enter.
Fortunately, the course corrections and assets needed are easily identified. But it does require that our schools do some soul-searching and make some wholesale changes based on the changing landscape.
The Education Advocates
Project ARC is a group of educators turned advocates that work with school districts, connecting them with community and industry partners to help all stakeholders understand their role in preparing learners with practical, real world applications. And they are starting to make an impact.
Though small, they have over 30 years of collective experience in 40+ states and 14 countries. Each of the three partners came to Project ARC for very different reasons. But together, they form a triumvirate that is a formidable adversary to the status quo of education. For Jill Clayton, it was a brilliant, challenging school that required she use and teach in the community for relevant learning through project design. For Tim Kubik, it was a lack of access to all the resources of teacher-directed learning that led him to a more student-centered learning. For Dayna Laur, it was that nagging feeling that learning didn’t really feel empowering, even when it was called Project-Based Learning.
According to Laur, “If educators implement co-created authentic challenges that are relevant to kids, then more complex opportunities to collaboratively engage, emerge. This level jump in engagement empowers kids to move beyond expectations and exceed the standards based outcomes we see in the majority of schools today. Kids have values and abilities to co-create and work alongside us as educators. Project ARC’s collaborative approach levels up complexity of learning for kids in the same way it levels up the complexity of instructional design for teachers.
Connecting The Concrete To The Abstract
Project ARC is the bridge that connects the concrete content in schools to the abstract skills industry needs in today’s job market. Research has long indicated the lack of agile, innovative problems solvers needed to fill the high skill employment gaps that exist in many markets. Many if not most jobs don’t have nicely packaged task lists. Today’s jobs require curiosity, passion, and persistence. Industry partners are willing to provide specific training and knowledge when employees can handle ambiguity and uncertainty, because they know from experience they are a valuable investment.”
That’s the key. Curiosity. Passion. Persistence. Learners need to take on a passion for learning, and that can only be done by connecting them to learning through a purpose that is unique to them and will direct their learning. Today’s learners are smart. They are connected to knowledge through the touch of a fingertip. They need more. They need involvement. And it has to be real.
“At Project ARC, we serve as the catalyst to provide students with complex learning opportunities through real-world and networking experiences,” said Laur. “Our Community Support Mapping ™ (CSM) and Tailored Professional Learning Inquiries™ (TPLI) bring business, community, and education stakeholders into transformative educational conversations rather than conversations about transforming education. The development of these skills cannot begin early enough. Therefore, some of our most successful partnerships begin in the early years.
In many cases, students may not meet external experts or industry partners until a solution to a challenge is presented. On occasion, teachers and industry partners may work together to design a project. However, neither party is traditionally prepared for the kinds of negotiations necessary to make connections, engage in authentic tasks, and collaborate throughout various points in a project.
We engage teachers and industry partners in project visioning sessions to identify and align learning outcomes even before a project starts. Great learning happens, concurrently, when teachers are immersed in real world applications for their content and industry partners are engaged with students. Students thrive when they are given the responsibility and opportunity to engage in authentic, real-world work that has the potential to effect change.”
Putting The Pieces Together
It's a process, and it requires districts to take a deep dive. But it is the kind of process that learners need if we hope to prepare them for a world that is very different than the one we entered from school. As business professionals, we understand the needs of our business and the skills we need from our employees to make it happen. The reality, however, is that most education organizations are sadly behind the times.
For the most part, we are still preparing our teachers the way we did 20 years ago, and our schools have been very slow to adapt to the real world. “Ultimately, we each realized that authentic and relevant learning is at the foundation of the complex opportunities available to professional educators,” said Laur. “Like their learners, teachers have their own authentic and relevant questions that deserve to be heard and honored. We want to partner with those who are asking for more, from themselves and their students.”
Treating teachers like learners, encouraging them to grow and adapt is an important part of the deep dive that schools must take, as is forging community partnerships and listening to the needs of industry, changing the focus of schools from inward to outward.
Community Support Mapping™, Project ARC’s signature component for a successful school partnership, is a service that goes beyond simple identification of local experts, guest speakers and project partners. According to Laur, “We complete deep investigations on a local level to establish community partnerships with service organizations, businesses, subject-matter experts and other local assets. These connections support learners and community partners in their quests to solve authentic challenges that meet the content standards in a relevant and meaningful way. Once school communities are aware of their assets, teachers, students, and the community partners all have the opportunity to engage in a networked improvement community ecosystem that stresses sharing and learning from one another’s assets.”
Without a doubt, we can transform our schools and prepare our children for the world they will meet. It will require the will of school leaders, educators, our communities and our business leaders. It’s a seed change. But all the assets we need are within reach. Author Cynthia Occelli said “For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes.To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
But to our business communities, it is merely a course correction, not unlike the many course corrections we undertake every day. The partners of Project ARC understand this seed change. They are preparing the ground and helping education organizations to understand both the need for change and the way forward once the need for change has been recognized.
For our part as business leaders, we need to encourage this change and take the initiative to reach out to our schools, asking for involvement and offering up our expertise. The stakes are high. Our future workforce depends on it. And perhaps the stakes are higher still – our children are depending on us.
