Preparing Our Future For Yesterday
It’s a shame that communication and presentation skills—so essential to success in life—aren’t taught in school.
Does that seem right?
In a recent tweet I talked about how I had to endure class presentations from people who do not know how to present.
I am in my second year of university and there are still students who put paragraphs on Powerpoint slides, read directly from notes, and stand with their hands in their pockets.
We have boring content and unenthusiastic presenters.
Our children will need to be prepared for jobs that do not exist yet. Meanwhile, they are still being inadequately trained for the jobs that are already available. I have marketing textbooks that were written only one or two years ago in which the authors still limit online advertising to banner ads and squeeze it into the last chapters of the book.
The skills required to be an effective marketer in 2010 are neglected; never mind the skills it will take five years from now.
We are training our future for yesterday, not tomorrow.
Old static information cannot prepare us for a dynamic future. Wisdom and creativity are what matter now, not the ability to regurgitate information.
Self-teaching, mentoring and internship are more important than ever to prepare for the future. Thankfully, we live in a world where they are not hard to obtain.
In his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink argues that mastery, autonomy, and purpose are the three things that are needed to produce spectacular results when learning and becoming better at new skills. None of these are evident in our schools today.
That said, I can’t talk about educating better than the man that has arguably the best TEDTalk of all time: Sir Ken Robinson.
Photo Credit: Presentation Zen
Emerson requires all students to take Speech during the first semester of their freshman year. And every single marketing class I had concluded with a group presentation. It probably varies by school, but I don't think it's true that no students are ever given adequate training with presentations.
However, I do agree that the VAST majority of marketing programs are living in the past. In an industry that's changing so rapidly, it must be hard for any marketing program to stay up to date. I'd be interested to see if students from other fields are experiencing the same situation…
DPW, your point is a fair one (universities don't teach presentation skills) but should they? A
university is not a vocational school and for good reason. They are meant to teach knowledge in a general way, a way that is not specifically applicable to any one job, but rather should be helpful no matter what job you do.
And, yes, Sir Ken's talk is killer, but he's not worried about teaching SKILLS, he's worried about teaching THOUGHT, wouldn't you agree?
Jeff
I slightly disagree. I believe he is more concerned with harvesting creativity in children so then can find their passion and become fulfilled in that area. That is the exact problem I have with the education system: you are taught to do a skill. It isn't about thought or creatively but a skill that you can use to go out and work 'comfortably' for someone else. My experience at university is that a lot of what you learn are only useful for a narrow amount of jobs.
College should not be a trade school!
It is difficult to stay abreast of rapidly changing industries for any school, that is why I believe that college should be primarily focused on a traditional liberl arts education. I may be in the “Millenial Minority” for believing that a traditional liberal arts education should be the basis for most undergraduate degrees, but I believe that would best prepare people for the workforce.