BFTP: ... and I turned out OK

This Blast from the Past is more relevant today than when I wrote it five years ago. We cannot afford not to educate every child to his or her highest potential given economic trends. I am beginning to realize just how lucky my (Boomers) generation had it economically. I'm not too worried about my own kids and grandkids, but I am very concerned about a lot of their peers...

Scott McLeod took some geezers to task in his post "We didn't have [x] when I was a kid and I turned out okay".  He writes:

Here's a statement that I'm getting really tired of hearing:

"We didn't have computers when I was in school and I turned out okay. There's no reason why kids today need 'em."

I'm sure that this argument was offered in the past as well:

"Buses? We walked to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways!"

"I don't want to pay for indoor plumbing for the school. We didn't have it when I was a student and I turned out alright."

"Electricity? Pshaw! Do you know how dangerous those wires are? When we were kids we had oil lamps and candles and everything was fine."

I suspect quite a few of the folks who say they turned out OK without [x] actually did turn out OK. They raised families, made a comfortable living, and contributed to their communities. And they did do so without the benefit of computers, the Internet, cell phones, or even Facebook.

But I would also remind these folks who turned out OK despite not having today's technologies that there were a few other things they didn't have as well, including:

• International competition for both blue and white collar jobs.
• Automated factories and farms that require less human labor.
• Increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence on customer support lines and elsewhere that eliminate the need for "routine cognitive tasks."
• A lack of political clout from organized labor.
• Competition for small business from big box stores and online merchants.
• A labor market that requires post-secondary training as the entry point to a decent paying job.
• The need to establish professional networks and develop an online portfolio of work.
• Openly partisan cable news channels and thousand of online pundits.
• The requirement that one must be creative, solve problems, and evaluate sources of information in order to be a valued member of an organization.

I don't doubt the sincerity of people who believed that they "turned out OK." But I do wonder if they could make an accurate assessment of their chances for success in today's technology-infused economy?

Personally, I don't hear parents or employers doubting the need for students to have access to technology in schools and good technology skills. There is certainly debate and even a lack of understanding about how one defines and how one achieves IT literacy, but the recognition for its need by parents has been around since the mid-90s at least.

I turned out OK, I guess, growing up before personal computers were even a gleam in Wozniak's eye. But that is not the case for the little folks I see in the school hallways everyday. They'll need more skills and abilities than I will ever dream of having.

Original post November 7, 2011