Today I read a blog post that suggests, “In America education should produce citizens, not workers” by Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog.
I shared a comment on their blog which seems appropriate for our community as well…
Thank you for your blog post today. I run a school called the Global Citizenship Experience (www.gcechicago.com) and am constantly awed by the masses who still think that the end goal is a degree or a job, or in the case of your argument, STEM professions in particular. I would challenge Rick Scott to consider companies like IDEO and Gravity Tank and 3M. These innovative and successful companies do not excel merely because of their engineering training, but because they consider the human being who interacts with the product or service. In our high school design we are constantly struggling to balance skills and application. We hold ourselves accountable by asking a very simple question: why (what’s the purpose)? Invariably, the answer comes back to something that makes the world better, for an individual and for the community.
eric