@universityMon - Sat, 2020
If students can’t specifically define their career goals, don’t think they’re avoiding the question. They could just be more aware of the situation than anyone realizes.
Teachers have always tried to make their lessons relevant to the world outside the classroom. High school teachers especially have always been a “lighthouse to look out there and see what’s evolving,” says Ron Canuel, president and CEO of The Learning Partnership, an organization that helps prepare students for the workforce.
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- JEAN-LUC PICARD
If that’s true, teachers are shining the light on an environment of constant change. Today’s students are inheriting a world of job disruption. According to a 2016 report from the World Economic Forum, more than 7 million jobs could be lost worldwide between 2015 and 2020. More and more, the jobs available are low-paying contracts, often without benefits and pensions. An aging population means people may work for longer, and need to be re-trained several times throughout the multiple careers they may have.
Granted, anxiety about the future is not new, but today’s students face many new challenges. More recent technologies, like 3D printing, cloud technology or devices connected to the Internet, drive many work and labour changes. Unprecedented amounts of information are now available instantaneously, causing information overload and social anxiety.
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
- JEAN-LUC PICARD
Gone are the days where students could assume specific education will lead to a specific job. “No one is going to pay these students for what they know anymore,” says Peter Cudmore, a high school teacher at Arnprior District High School in Arnprior, ON.
