The Education System Puzzle - Part 2
One of the
chapters of the book, The
Elephant in the Brain, has (part of the) answer to the
why-is-education-so-obviously-messed-up-and-why-do-employers-still-give-it-value-at-hiring
question.
The purpose of the
education system, say the authors, is for students to signal their “work
potential” to the world. Future work productivity is what employers look for:
“The best employees have a whole bundle of
attributes – including intelligence, of course, but also conscientiousness,
attention to detail, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to conform to
expectations.”
A technical test
can only find “intelligence”, but not the other aspects. So employers use
“school performance as a proxy” for the other points. Here’s what an employer
can infer about a straight A’s student from a top college:
1)
“She might have retained that knowledge,
but statistically speaking, she’s probably forgotten a lot of it…”;
2)
“(Far more important) She has the ability
to master a large body of new concepts, quickly and thoroughly enough to meet
the standards of an expert in the field (or at least studied harder than her
peers)”;
3)
“She’s the kind of person who can
consistently stay on top of her workload… Every test fell on a specific date,
and she studied and crammed enough to perform well on those tests”;
Or put very
bluntly:
“Educated workers are generally better workers,
but not necessarily because school made
them better. Instead, a lot of the value of education lies in giving students a
chance to advertise the attractive qualities they already
have.”
Education doesn’t improve, rather it certifies via tests and measurements over a long period of time.
Consistency over a long time is key: it suggests an inherent quality of the
individual.
Obviously, this is
not the complete answer, but most sociologists of education believe it is a
huge component of the answer. Ironically, this explanation aligns with some
ridiculous practices at school that never change:
-
Waiting
for permission to go to the toilet (yes, how horrifying that sounds to every
adult) signals the capability to follow-the-rules;
-
(Teaching
and) Learning obviously irrelevant, obsolete and nonsensical topics signals the
ability to deal with the same later at the workplace!
Hey, I just said I
found an answer, not that it was the
answer or that the answer would appeal to everyone.
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