The great divide: October 05, 1998 issue of New Thinking

October 05, 1998 New Thinking:
The great divide

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October 05, 1998

The great divide

By Gerry McGovern

Last week I wrote about the Clueless Society and about how in our pursuit of ‘life-long learning’ we are in danger of becoming jacks of all trades and masters of none. This week I’d like to put a question mark over the entire Information Society. Is it for real?

Thinking about the whole digital age, I am often reminded of a cartoon that I saw some years ago. The President of the United States was making a speech proclaiming the fact that millions of new jobs were being created. As he was talking, a waiter near his table was saying to himself, “And I have three of them.”

A 1996 major report by Philadelphia Inquirer writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele entitled America: Who Stole The Dream?, wrote passionately about a divided American society. According to the report, many of America’s best-paying manufacturing jobs were being exported as a result of globalization. They were being replaced by low paying service jobs.

The Philadelphia Inquirer report laid down a number of stark statistics:

In 1995, a total of 6.4 million people aged 25 and older earned between $4.25 - the minimum wage - and $5.99 an hour.
Working single mothers’ average adjusted gross income was less in 1993 than in 1970.
In 1994, more than 15 million children lived below the poverty line. That was up from 13 million a decade earlier.

The report also examined the 1996-97 edition of the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook. The top ten occupations expected to have the highest job growth over the next ten years were: 1) cashiers; 2) janitors and cleaners; 3) retail sales clerks; 4) waiters and waitresses; 5) registered nurses; 6) general managers and top executives; 7) systems analysts; 8) home-health aides; 9) guards; 10) nursing aides, orderlies and attendants.

Reading the above, you would have to wonder whether knowledge and learning is still the domain of the elite. Because the reality is that you don’t need a college degree to be a cashier or janitor. Why do our waiters and nursing aides need to embrace life-long learning if the growth area for jobs in the digital age economy is in these low-paying service careers?

Seymour Papert is a leading thinker in education. He has often used a metaphor of an 18th Century physician transported to a modern hospital theatre feeling totally lost among the hi-tech equipment. At the same time, an 18th Century teacher transported to most modern classrooms would be able to pick up some chalk and carry on. Papert was trying to illustrate how little education has changed but needs to change.

In some ways I feel it is comforting that a teacher can teach with such simple tools, for that means they can reach a very large segment of the population. A modern hospital theatre is wondrous but extremely expensive to fit out and is designed for the wealthy.

I used to think that the industrial age was one of rigid rules and formula education, and that this digital age demanded a whole new approach. For some, that is undoubtedly so. For those who serve us, low wages will ensure that life-long learning is replaced by life-long drudgery.

Gerry McGovern

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For those who serve us, low wages will ensure that life-long learning is replaced by life-long drudgery.