The future: The Entrepreneur

What does the future in education look like?  Well if you look at the Horizon wiki and read some articles from there you realize that everyone has a slightly different idea of where education is/should be going.  Two things everyone agrees on is that what is going on in schools today needs to change and that this change will come with the use of technology.  I believe these things too, but I will get back to them later.

What I really want to talk about in this post is about jobs.  I was listening to the radio the other day and I will admit it was an AM talk radio show (in my defence it is the only radio station I get when I travel to visit my fiance).  Anyway I was listening to the radio and this young 22 year old guy came on complaining that there is lots of jobs out there but not that many careers.  He worries that even when he does school he won't be able to get a reliable, well paying career job that he can raise a family on.  This got me thinking, is this true and if it is, how can we, as educators, prepare our students for a world like this.  The conclusion I came up with is that we need more entrepreneurs.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. 

– Peter Drucker

Being an entrepreneur takes many characteristics like: bravery, interest, passion, commitment, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, money management, marketing, networking and hard work.  It also takes understanding hard times and that not everything is going to come easily.  It also needs a person who can deal with failure and grow from it.

The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake – you can’t learn anything from being perfect. 

– Adam Osborne

Do you think our system is preparing our students for these things???  I don't.  Entrepreneurs are the backbone to every society.  They are the ones that create new jobs, challenge establish business to do better and allow people who enter the company to move up the ranks and have good paying jobs/careers.  We need these people but our schools are not inspiring or preparing students for this.  The no fail policies and virtually no penalties for handing work in late is not the way to make independent, accountable and resilient entrepreneurs.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – Thomas Edison

So how does technology in education fit into this??  Well I believe that with the use of technology in our classrooms we can foster creativity, interest, and problem solving skills within our students.  Technology allows us to assign different kinds of assignments other then essays and powerpoint projects to show their knowledge.  They could make videos, write blogs, create websites, infographics, cartoons(even if they can't draw).  They can also get knowledge through novel ways like emailing experts, skyping in other classes or polling people(i,e, create a poll everywhere, print it on paper and set it up around the school, mall ect. and collect data on your poll everywhere site).  We no longer have to rely on secondary sources of information but can find primary ones if we only use our creativity, problem solving and (here is a new one) networking skills.

The other thing the internet allows is for the students to find their interests and passions within a subject.  I think everyone can become interested in any subject but maybe not every topic so with the use of the internet the students can research a topic they are interested in within a subject instead of learning with whatever topic you, as the teacher, choose to teach the content with.


So I hope it is clear, but I really think that if we use technology appropriately in the classroom we can inspire students.  We need to do more then just for streaming YouTube videos, but need to get students creating things, networking and gathering primary information in ways or on topics that they are interested in.  This way the next time I'm listening to boring old AM talk radio I won't hear about a poor 22 year old who can't find a career because he would have created one for himself!

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. 

– Vidal Sassoon

p.s.  If you ever want to find some good quotes on entrepenuership and motivation chack out these 2 websites!

http://www.minterest.com/99-inspirational-motivational-quotes-on-entrepreneurship/

http://www.glidedesign.com/50-great-entrepreneurial-quotes/