Looking back - and forward

As the new co-chair of Public Issues Forums of Centre County, I inherited the responsibility for maintaining the PIF blog on the Centre Daily Times web site. Generally, I'll try to keep my blogging hats separate, but since the topic of today's post is clearly educational in nature, I thought it would be appropriate to post here, as well.

So, I'm 'double-posting'.  My apologies if that's a violation of protocol.

I recently had a chance to look at the videotape from last April's public issues forum: "What is the 21st Century Mission for our Public Schools?" The first approach addressed by the group suggested that the primary mission was "to prepare students to be successful in the workplace."

Although the majority of group members consisted of high school and college students, it was two of the 'parents' who opened the discussion by expressing the concern that our educational system is still preparing students for a single-career employment model that has already become obsolete.

Do today's graduates have the skills that will enable them to transition into a completely different career when they're 40?

Will they have the ability to learn what they need to know on their own?

Are they being prepared for an era when "life-long learning" is not just a nice aspiration, but a necessity?

These forums often raise more questions than answers; and these questions were a good way to begin the dialogue.