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shallowdeep -> RE: Would you rather be "starting out" or "finishing"? (4/27/2007 4:12:54 AM)
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As someone who is "starting out," I personally tend to see changes in the future in an optimistic light as both challenges and opportunities. I'm not sure if the video was intended to be purely bleak or not (although certain parts did seem to lean in that direction), but that wasn't its overall effect on me.
A couple of things from the video in particular elicited a reaction from me.
Regarding students at four year educational institutions:
"...half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study."
Human knowledge is cumulative. The creation of new knowledge doesn't usually invalidate existing knowledge. Even in those cases where new understanding does mostly supersede previous knowledge, understanding the "old" knowledge and the process used to obtain a new understanding is invaluable.
Furthermore, and more to the point, education is not about memorizing technical knowledge - it's about learning how to both learn and create knowledge and, equally importantly, instilling a lifelong desire to do so. An education then helps transform the rate of change in our world from something potentially daunting into endless opportunity.
"We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist... using technologies that haven't yet been invented... in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet."
While I feel the statement is perhaps a bit misleading in light of change being a cumulative process, my reaction when I read it was, "I wouldn't have it any other way."
I'm not blindly optimistic about the future. It doesn't take much vision to foresee some of the significant challenges that will have to be faced personally, nationally, and globally. Despite this, I view the challenges as interesting problems with solutions waiting to be found and/or implemented and I can't help but look forward to the journey even with the understanding that it will be far from perfect.
At some future point in time I can envision myself contented to be approaching the proverbial finish line, but I'm not at that point yet and, despite it still being early in the race, I do sometimes find myself wanting to rerun it knowing what I do now. I guess I see living without regrets as an indication of having lived with a deficiency of dreams. With that said, any remorse for a past that can't be changed is outweighed by hope for a future that can be.
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Pondering what I'll think of this post in 2049... assuming I haven't been able to afford a $1000 computer with more computational capability than the human race to do my thinking for me, of course. =)
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