On 6/26/09, Kay wrote:
> In previous decades, I had many students who were not going
> to go to college or trade school. Now, nearly everyone must
> take some type of schooling after graduation to even hope for
> a job that will allow them to live independently.

Yes, maybe people haven’t changed, but the world we live in has
changed. In the last century we went from an agricultural age,
through an industrial age, and into the information age.
Transportation and communication has shrunk the world. American
workers are now competing with workers all over the world.
Advances in technology and science has in many ways made our
lives better and easier, but in other ways has made our lives
more fast-paced and stressful, placing greater demands on our
ability to learn and make use of information. Education has
become more important than ever.

I’ll give one example. There is a program at a community college
in my city called Supplemental Instruction. It trains students
who received a grade of “A” in certain classes to work as
tutors/mentors to students in those classes who need help. It
targets a number of classes where the failure rate is
consistently above 50%. I was stunned to learn that there were
any classes where the failure rate was over 50%. One of those
classes was I believe the first course in the Automotive
Mechanics program. For sure, mechanics still get their hands
greasy, but they also need to be able to read and understand
technical manuals and use the computers to diagnose problems of
more sophisticated electronic systems in cars today. Just about
every industry has gotten more technical and requires more math
than 50 years ago.

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