Career Education Is NOT The Answer!

This article in the St. Petersburg Times has it all wrong.  Job training is not the proper goal of high school.  I repeat:  Job training is not the proper goal of high school. 

What is the goal?  Or at least what should it be?  It is to develop the skills necessary for life-long learning.  This is the central thesis of the Dorothy Sayers essay on which classical Christian education is founded.  Learning is to be life-long!  Therefore, the goal of education is to teach how to learn, not just what to learn.

Job training programs emphasize, on the other hand, specific task-oriented skills.  But this is so shortsighted.  The jobs of today will not necessarily be the jobs of tomorrow.  As a society, focusing on job training may well end up teaching skills that will be obsolete by the time the student graduates.

What is the goal of a sound education?

• To point to salvation and personal service to Christ.
• To prepare the graduate for lifelong scholarship by giving him or her the ability to expanding the intellect, purifying the passions, and fortifying the will.
• To encourage the graduate to be a helpful churchman and contributing citizen, no matter what his or her occupation.
• To equip for constructive engagement with the community.
• To promote benevolent service to others in society.
• To prepare students to enter into the Great Conversation of Western Civilization.

None of these aspirations are job-specific.  Wanting students to have goals is a good thing.  But we as Americans are far too easily pleased.  By focusing on job-training, we are not raising our sights high enough.  To change our culture and advance the cause of Christ.  There is a worthy goal for education.