An Emerging Perspective on Policies for American Work and Education for the Year 2000: Choices We Face

As the United States and the rest of the world moves into an electronic-driven postindustrial revolution that is replacing the factory industrialism of the beginning of the century, new realities call for change in the workplace and the education system. Declining wages, increased unemployment, and a lowered standard of living have occurred as the vestiges of the factory model are used to try to manage the new work and the new work force. That model, described by Frederick Taylor as breaking down skills so that any job could be learned in 15 minutes, is not suitable for the work and the work force of today and the next century. Instead, if the increasing polarization of those who "have" technology and those who "have not" is to be slowed, work must become increasingly complex and require higher-level thinking skills of workers. Thomas Dewey's idea of teaching many types of skills though an industrial weaving model can be used so that all students gain technological skills as they learn to think and solve problems. In a learning society, the old styles of the division of management and labor must be replaced by cooperative learning and problem solving if the United States is to survive and compete in the global economy. (Contains 13 references.) (KC)