Stick with Something When It Makes No Sense

For several decades I counseled people how to understand college assignments--it shouldn't apply today

This very important lesson meant a lot to me for several decades. I shared it with thousands of students and parents. It helped explain the frustrations they encountered in college. Colleges, like all educational institutions, focus on preparing students to survive and thrive in the environment they encounter professionally. The industrial age demanded certain skills from the majority of the workforce at all levels. However, as the word moved into the information/technology age those demands changed radically. Educational institutions should change to prepare for these new times. Thus, this important lesson became semi-obsolete.

Previous Demands for Dependability and Obedience

As I described in a previous post the requirements to succeed and demands of workplace changed significantly between the Agricultural Age, the Industrial Age, and the Information/Technology age. Industrialists required capital to succeed. The companies needed a workforce that was dependable and obedient. They needed to show up to weld the doors on the car exactly the way the company wanted.

Hence, the educational systems focused on preparing people to be obedient and dependable. In other words, they need workers who would do what they were told because someone said it would be important. Therefore, colleges used a system that expected students to do something that made no sense, just because their professors told them it would be important in the future. Understanding this principle helped students continue doing what appeared stupid to them.

I shared this important life lesson with thousands of students. They said it helped.

A New Economy Requires New Purposes and Practices

The information/technology age requires completely different demands: ingenuity to succeed. Both employers and employees need self-motivation and communication skills. In other words, we need to be able to think outside the box, communicate your ideas to others, and motivate yourself to move forward without close supervision.

I hope you can see the problems created by these two course colliding. Dependable and obedient conflicted with ingenious, self-motivated, and communicating your ideas to others. As a result, college and educational institutions need to change the purpose of their educational experiences. Forcing someone to do something that makes no sense because someone else told them, does not stimulate ingenuity or self-motivation.

This life lesson helped me and thousands of others no longer applies. I have not discovered what the new lesson for the new economy will be.

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