The Graduate

The education system has several significant side effects: The confidence the public has in the competence of the state can be deeply affected by the perceived quality of the education system. In addition to that, the education system can produce results by hightening the student's awareness of certain issues, such as ecology, and encouraging them to influence their family members who are outside the formal education system. Some sort of collateral indoctrination. Another side effect has to do with public health and similar issues: The very fact that all - or almost all - the children go through the system, enables mass innoculation, mass health checks, and easy surveying of basic social issues.

But the main effect an education system has on society, comes through the graduates the system produces. The profile of the desired graduate is the starting point for any discussion about education. Or should be. So, looking at the present - as much as we understand it - and anticipating the next century or so, what do we think the graduate should look like? The following thinking attempts to remain within the near-consensus.

The graduate must have high levels of literacy and numeracy. This should be achieved very quickly - the first few years of schooling. High levels of literacy and numeracy at a young age, are the basis upon which many other skills, and much of the necessary knowledge, can be built. For many, literacy should include a second language. It would be interesting to check the level of consensus on this issue, especially in the major English-speaking countries and in (other?) closed societies.

The graduate should be able to deal with information overload. This is a relatively new need. It used to be the case that in looking for knowledge about anything, the challenge was finding the data. In the past few years, finding data is in most cases easy - just Google it. Finding our way out of the data - that's the trick. Eliminating the mountain of irrelevant data, partly relevant data and downright false data, is a skill needed by any traveller on the information highway. For example, as of this moment, >700,000 Google hits for "information highway". Oh, and even more than that for "information superhighway" OR "information super-highway", which brings to our attention that even an avalanche of data (the first 700,000) doesn't necessarily contain even half of what we need.

The Internet is just one source for information overload. There are also the news media, drama-based media, and advertisement. Dealing with any of these sources requires the graduate to have the skill and habit of Critical Thinking. In many cases, a basic understanding of how large amounts of data work - I.e., Statistics - is necessary. Even just to distinguish between an anecdote (today it got hotter - 8⁰C above yesterday) and a trend (in the last century it got hotter - 0.74⁰C). Some feeling for statistics would help many of us ignore nonsensical claims by advertisers and politicians. An interesting indication that a society's statistics literacy level has increased, would be the demise of lotteries, whose success is based mainly on the lack of basic understanding of probability.

The desired graduate should be able to deal with rapid changes. Socially acceptable practices are changing: Political correctness, litigious society, etc. Nationalism comes in and out of fashion. But also changes in the work environment: Old skills and knowledge become obsolete; New skills and knowledge are necessary. The graduates of today's school will have to keep learning throughout their lives. They had better enjoy it, and be good at it.

The availability of information together with the rapid changes, creates a state of constant uncertainty: Things keep changing; we know they are changing; and we don't have all the information to anticipate what the change will look like. Dealing gracefully with uncertainty, and the skills required for Risk Management, used to be needed only by leaders. These habits and skills are now required by more and more people. Being uncomfortable with uncertainty becomes an assured constant discomfort. Some closed societies are trying to protect themselves from this trend, but even they can't expect to be insulated from urbanization, globalization, ecological issues, etc.

A related capacity necessary for any graduate, is the ability to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, and the ability to live with the results of decisions, even if the results are not what one wished for. One understanding which is not common enough, is that a correct decision may still bring undesirable results. Another, related understanding is that wrong decisions are unavoidable. Dealing graciously with making mistakes is an important capacity in an uncertain world.

Usually, I shy away from discussing values, since they seldom fit into the consensus. However, there are certain behaviors that any state discourages. Not because these behaviors are non-virtuous, but because they are disruptive. For example: Very little violence by the citizens is condoned. Also, most societies discourage victimization of one person by another. This would lead most societies to require that the graduate will not tend to be violent, hateful or dismissive towards the rights of other members of the same society. For similar reasons - of keeping the order - other traits are often encouraged: Respect for the law, and contribution to society. Though these last goals are pursued less diligently and less successfully. In less cohesive societies, these softer traits are not quite within the consensus. Of the habits that pretend to reflect values, the minimum consensual requirements of the graduate can include a level of self control and a capacity for anger management required to allow non-violence. Also within that minimum, there is a level of respect for the law. Such requirements are not quite as a consensual as literacy, numeracy, etc. They are also more difficult to measure, and therefore more difficult to regulate. To make things more complicated, these traits are affected to a large extent by the surrounding society, which makes it difficult to maintain pinpointed accountability for the education system's success in promoting them. Still, it is beneficial to try and promote these tendencies.

Back to clearer characteristics of the desired graduate: It is virtually impossible to ignore technology. Technology is all around us, changing and evolving, and it is a definite requirement for any member of society to be technologically literate. This doesn't mean that everyone should be able to create new technology. But to function comfortably in a modern (or post-modern) environment, one has to be able to use technology: Computers, automatic answering machines, cell-phones, cars, etc. One should also have a general sense of what to expect from technology, and even more so - what not to expect: The automatic answering service will not negotiate and will not respond to pleading - or anger.

Of all the desired attributes of the graduate listed here, one is worth reiterating: Being a lifelong learner. Expecting one's hard-won skills and knowledge to become obsolete within one's lifetime - maybe more than once. Expecting to acquire new skills and knowledge. And enjoying it.