Know thyself?

The second in a series on last April's public issues forum: "What is the 21st Century Mission for our Public Schools?"

I was struck by a participant's observation concerning the number of people who appear to be unhappy in their jobs, in spite of the 12-16 years - or more - of education that they had invested in preparation.  She also noted that when people are unhappy, they tend to be not very good at at what they do - with the obvious implications for society at large. This suggested to her that "knowing oneself" - what you're good at, what you like to do - is an important, but overlooked part of being prepared to enter the workforce.

Another comment referenced the pre-forum article in the CDT in which Bill Gates claimed that even schools that are relatively well-functioning "are not designed to prepare people to go out in the workforce now."  This raised the question: what does he mean by that? - and how have the set of skills that make for an effective employee changed in the thirty years since the industrial model dominated the economy?