
Those Mythological "Jobs Of Tomorrow" - a_band
https://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/those-mythological-jobs-of-tomorrow.html
======
dfdz
>My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep
our schools focused exclusively on vocational training, to prepare our
children for those mythological "jobs of tomorrow," jobs that may exist today,
but are unlikely to exist two decades from now when our preschoolers are
seeking to enter the job market... Anyone who claims to know the specific
skills required for the jobs of tomorrow is just blowing smoke. They are wrong
and they have always been wrong.

It seems that Teacher Tom is missing the point about early STEM education
(this seems particularly worrying given that he is a teacher). The point is
not to teach preschoolers how to use, for example, TensorFlow so that they can
develop deep learning models (who are predict if this would have any relevance
for the future?).

Instead, the point is to help kids to develop a background in math, physics,
chemistry, etc. whose basic foundations haven't changed in the fundamental way
in the past 50 years. In particular, developing an understanding of math takes
time, and seems likely to required for many jobs for tomorrow. Would Teacher
Tom contest the point that math will be necessary for jobs of the future?
Perhaps Teacher Tom's object was just to write a provocative article to
generate blog traffic, (fair enough) but the argument presented in the blog
does not seem very well reasoned.

~~~
p1necone
It seems to be a common thing for people who didn't get a decent education in
maths and science to decry the teaching of maths and science.

~~~
jhanschoo
To go on a tangent, one very important topic (even more than STEM) that I
don't think is formally taught at all is governance.

I think children should get a proper education formally and practically on how
to balance and how to meet the political (in the sense that these are needs
that are solved at the societal / collective level) needs of a group of
people. It doesn't have to be a large group; along the lines of the entire
school or talking about the needs of a district or city would do. I think that
such education would go a long way to help people understand what is important
in governance, and be more resistant to political ideology that is harmful to
these things.

~~~
barry-cotter
One in five Americans cannot name any of the branches of government. Only 46%
know each state has two senators. It is extremely difficult to get people to
retain any knowledge they neither use nor care about.

Teaching children how to organize to solve their own problems would be
antithetical to the incentives of any normal school’s administration. Children
who can self-organize to oppose them are a threat. If people wanted children
to learn how to organize, be capable and be self-efficacious democratic
schools like Summerhill or Sudbury would be vastly more popular. They don’t.
They want childcare that teaches children to sit down, shut up and do as
they’re told.

~~~
someguydave
The solution to this problem is not education but limiting the vote to those
who have shown themselves to be responsible and competent voters.

~~~
barry-cotter
Who do you trust to administer that test? I don’t trust anyone with the power
to deprive other people of all effective power. If you don’t have a vote even
the best “representative” in the world will place less effort into helping you
than someone who also needs their help who can vote for them.

~~~
someguydave
The people who choose not to vote deprive themselves of the vote. Do you trust
them to do so?

~~~
barry-cotter
Yes. They do not deprive themselves of the power to vote as your proposal
does. You may not care about the difference between the plausible candidates
currently on offer enough to vote. But if the Communist Party seems likely to
get into government suddenly a lot more people will care.

A power not exercised is still relevant insofar as it can be.

~~~
someguydave
I'm not proposing to deprive anyone of the vote if they are willing to show
themselves to be responsible.

I would make a simple criteria: if you are a net taxpayer, you get to vote. If
you are a net loss to the government, you don't get to vote.

If people have control over their circumstances, then they will be able to
arrange their life in such a way that they can enable their voting power and
vote responsibly.

------
rayiner
This is wrong on two levels.

First:

> My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep
> our schools focused exclusively on vocational training, to prepare our
> children for those mythological "jobs of tomorrow," jobs that may exist
> today

My first grader is going to college in 11 years. 11 years ago was 2009. The
jobs were more or less the same. She’ll be graduated in 15. 15 years ago was
2005. The jobs were the same.

Second: the article conflates STEM with vocational training. It’s not. It’s an
alternative framework to the “liberal arts education.” Even if the “jobs of
tomorrow” are different, a STEM education will prepare kids for it better than
a liberal arts education. The idea that a "liberal arts education" is the "all
purpose flour" of education is obsolete. It's an artifact of the culture of
western aristocrats.

> No, the purpose of education in a democracy ought to be to prepare children
> for their role as citizens and that means that they learn to think for
> themselves, that they ask a lot of questions, that they question authority,
> that they stand up for what they believe in, and that they understand that
> their contribution to the world cannot be measured in money

A STEM education is better for that too! Citizens who cannot think about the
world in numeric and statistical terms are not prepared to understand it, or
the complex choices facing them.

> I did not enter the teaching game to prepare young children for their role
> in the economy

Teachers are deeply confused about their role. They're public employees who
are hired to prepare kids for the work force because that is what taxpayers
pay them to do. We don't spend $1 trillion a year on public education to have
teachers indoctrinate kids on their philosophical and political views. (Now
that I have my own kids in school, I understand why my mom, moving to the US
from an Asian country 30 years ago, was so befuddled by the education I was
receiving.)

~~~
triceratops
> Citizens who cannot think about the world in numeric and statistical terms
> are not prepared to understand it, or the complex choices facing them... We
> don't spend $1 trillion a year on public education to have teachers
> indoctrinate kids on their philosophical and political views.

I think the "liberal" in "liberal arts" is throwing you off :-P.

Math, stats, and logic is very much part of a liberal arts education.[1] So
are life and natural sciences, philosophy, history, geography, and political
science. I would imagine learning all of these would make you a better
informed citizen.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_usage)

~~~
rayiner
From that link:

> In the Renaissance, the Italian humanists and their Northern counterparts,
> despite in many respects continuing the traditions of the Middle Ages,
> reversed that process. Re-christening the old trivium with a new and more
> ambitious name: Studia humanitatis, and also increasing its scope, they
> _downplayed logic_ as opposed to the traditional Latin grammar and rhetoric,
> and added to them history, Greek, and moral philosophy (ethics), with a new
> emphasis on poetry as well.

In practice, modern “liberal arts” programs often dispense with logic, math,
and empirical science. Again, from your link:

> For example, the core courses for Georgetown University's Doctor of Liberal
> Studies program cover philosophy, theology, history, art, literature, and
> the social sciences.

More fundamentally, it’s insufficient to throw in a few courses on math that
everyone quickly forgets. Math, science, and logic should be the _basic
foundation_ for cultivating children’s world view, not literature, philosophy,
or social studies.

For example, consider how kids learn about history. They read stories, mostly
focused on individuals. But that’s not the only way to learn history. I took a
class at Georgia Tech in the history of science, which looked at the impact on
society of various technological advances. History education doesn’t quantify
anything. But we have lots of data. What was the GDP per capita of ancient
Egypt versus Mesopotamia? What are quantitative indicators we can use to help
put those societies into context and compare them with ours? what was the
infant mortality rate in India before and after British colonization? What
were the demographic trends in Mandate Palestine prior to the creation of
Israel?

~~~
triceratops
> In practice, modern “liberal arts” programs often dispense with logic, math,
> and empirical science...it’s insufficient to throw in a few courses on math
> that everyone quickly forgets.

Where are you getting any of this from? What in the world are you talking
about?

Since you mentioned Georgia Tech, I looked up their liberal arts programs at
the undergraduate and graduate level.

Selected undergrad majors: Computational Media (computer science and
design)[1], Economics (pretty mathy, check out the curriculum[2]), Global
Economics and Languages (ditto [3]).

Selected graduate majors: Digital Media (tons of programming and design
work[4]), Human Computer Interaction (tech-y by definition [5]), Economics,
Infosec [6]. Seems like any of those degrees would require plenty of "logic,
math, and empirical science".

But then one might say, "Georgia Tech is an engineering school. Of course
their liberal arts stuff is going to be tinged with rigor. But them lefty,
coastal, liberal hotbeds can't reason their way out of a paper bag."

So I looked up Wellesley College, one such institution. They offer majors in
such soft disciplines as Astronomy, Physics, Astrophysics, Biochemistry, Math,
Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science, Geosciences, to name a few.[7] They
graduate students in these majors _every year_.

I don't think you understand the breadth of disciplines that a liberal arts
education can encompass. There are liberal arts degrees attained by taking the
bare minimum of math, or science classes and then there are liberal arts
degrees such as geology that have plenty of hard (haha!) science and math
behind them.

> consider how kids learn about history. They read stories, mostly focused on
> individuals. But that’s not the only way to learn history. I took a class at
> Georgia Tech in the history of science, which looked at the impact on
> society of various technological advances

What does a class you took at Georgia Tech have to do with how kids are taught
history in school? They are different things. Kids being taught history poorly
doesn't invalidate the importance of the subject. Kids are taught math and
science poorly too.

Advanced studies in history do explore questions of the sort you raised.

> Math, science, and logic should be the basic foundation for cultivating
> children’s world view, not literature, philosophy, or social studies.

I think philosophy and social studies are just as important as math and
science, and maybe literature is less important. First off, logic has its
roots in philosophy[8]. Social studies such as history, civics, and geography
are important for a well-informed citizenry. Economics is pretty handy. You
may scoff at literature as being useless, but it forms the basis of the
entertainment industry - plenty of money there.

1\.
[https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/cm](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/cm)

2\.
[https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/econom...](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/economics)

3\.
[https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/geml](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/geml)

4\.
[https://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/program/courses-2/](https://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/program/courses-2/)

5\.
[http://www.mshci.gatech.edu/program/about](http://www.mshci.gatech.edu/program/about)

6\.
[https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/graduate](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/graduate)

7\.
[https://www.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog](https://www.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog)

8\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic)

~~~
ggggtez
There is an issue of terminology happening here. While Georgia Tech might have
a "Liberal Arts College", that's not the same thing as a "Liberal Arts
degree".

From wikipedia: "There is no formal definition of liberal arts college".

Here's someone else explaining better than I can: "A bachelor's degree in
liberal arts means that the courses you take will be in general areas of study
such as philosophy, mathematics, literature, art history, or languages, rather
than in applied or specialized fields."

If you think that Biochemistry is a "liberal arts degree" then you've really
misunderstood what the above poster was talking about. Biochemistry is a
specialized field, and no one would consider that a liberal arts subject.

If it helps, you want to be looking towards degrees like: psychology,
business, literature, arts, sociology, women's studies, languages, history,
political science... Does this mean these degrees will never touch math? By no
means! But it's foolish to think the level of mathematical and technical rigor
would be similar to a degree in, say, Physics.

Generally speaking, even a Physics student will take some liberal arts classes
as electives, as part of a "liberal arts education"; what we might call well-
rounded. But while the physics student might read a few books and find it
interesting, and keep that as part of them for the rest of their life... it's
generally _not_ the case that a student of Fine Arts is going to take Calculus
and occasionally wistfully perform derivatives.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
STEM people have a real blind spot with this.

Who runs the world? Not STEM people. Most politicians have a legal and/or
liberal background. They may _also_ have a background in STEM - particularly
likely in Europe, less so in the US - but you get nowhere in politics without
studying and understanding foundational liberal arts skills such as rhetoric,
persuasion, and public debate.

The idea that liberal arts majors spend their entire time writing on
essentially useless activities - like post-structural critiques of famous
literature - is hilariously naive.

Some liberal arts academics do indeed do this, but that's because the liberal
arts have pure and applied elements. Just like STEM. And STEM academics also
spend their time on wildly impractical theoretical pastimes.

But at the applied end, the liberal arts run the planet. They don't keep the
lights on - engineers do that - but they set the policy goals and define the
political, economic, moral, and philosophical orthodoxies that virtually
everyone conforms to, whether or not they're consciously aware of it.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
Funnily enough, most politicians* are from law backgrounds... which while it
falls on the 'arts' side of the spectrum is definitely a specialized field and
vocation.

I suspect that the dichotomy isn't so much 'STEM vs Arts' but 'Accountable vs
Unaccountable'. Most STEM fields are accountable to reality and future
employers, and law is similarly accountable to rival scholars of law and
employers of new lawyers. That makes law a rather noteworthy outlier in the
liberal arts.

*in western countries

~~~
triceratops
Physics, math, chemistry, logic, biology, history, geography, geology,
astronomy, even economics are "accountable to reality". They are all liberal
arts. Your idea of liberal arts is incomplete.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
Are you accepting the dichotomy of STEM and Liberal Arts, and then
categorising math as a liberal art?

Do you know the M in STEM stands for 'Mathematics'?

~~~
triceratops
I think it's pretty clear from my posts that I'm not accepting this dichotomy
- the "S" is science. Most sciences and math are firmly in the realm of
liberal arts. I believe the argument is over how much T & E there needs to be
in school and college education.

------
ggggtez
This article says "2020", but I got about 2 sentences in and said... "I've
read this before". In 2018...

[http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/those-
mythologic...](http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/those-mythological-
jobs-of-tomorrow.html)

But wait, there is more! He _also_ wrote it 3 years ago. Nearly word-for-word
identical.

[http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/when-
democracy-s...](http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/when-democracy-
suffers.html)

Self-plagarism is still plagarism.

------
coldtea
> _Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of
> tomorrow is just blowing smoke. They are wrong and they have always been
> wrong._

Well, historically they have been more right than wrong. For millennia jobs
were more or less constant (farming, the trades, commerce, mercenary, etc) so
it was even very easy to predict. And for the best part of the industrial era,
"more STEM" would be both easy to predict and an easy win. As would be "more
office/services jobs" in the mid-20th century, and "more IT jobs" in the 80s
and on. All of those existed as guesses and were correct. So where are those
guesses that "have always been wrong"?

> _Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of
> tomorrow is just blowing smoke._

That's also a bad argument. Nobody claims "specific skills".

A STEM education is not just some specific skills, it's a very wide range of
skills, that have been useful to the best job positions for centuries.

Don't see that changing, unless widespread general AI (not the crap we have
today, with task-oriented NN models) takes over most technical and scientific
jobs renders poetry and painting and music playing the only jobs available to
people. Which I don't see it happening in the next 50 years or so, if ever.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> they learn to think for themselves, that they ask a lot of questions, that
> they question authority, that they stand up for what they believe in

And math and science teach you how to frame those questions. They enable you
to evaluate the evidence that those authorities may be using. They show how to
present new evidence or new models to update the existing knowledge.

In short, math and science addresses the issue of if two people have differing
views, how can they state those views clearly (mathematics) and evaluate the
correctness of those views in an objective manner (science).

The issue with our society isn’t that people aren’t questioning authority, it
is that a lot of people are questioning, not in a quest for truth, but to be
able to impose their view of the world on everybody else and become the
authority. Without science and mathematics, all this questioning just devolves
to demagoguery and questions of power and control. There are many groups that
claim to “question” authority, but woe be to any member that question the
group’s beliefs.

Science and mathematics allow people from different backgrounds with different
beliefs to all speak a common language and have a common way of stating
hypothesis and evaluating evidence so that we can learn more about our world.
Engineering and technology allow us to use that knowledge to make other humans
lives better.

~~~
flr03
For people to debate, understand and live with each other I would rather teach
them philosophy than mathematics.

------
def8cefe
Having been born in the early 90s I sure wish my elementary school teachers
encouraged an interest in computers and used them for more than KidPix,
AskJeeves and word processing. They treated computers like a fad then and
failed us, let's not make the same mistake again.

------
nitwit005
This sort of vague condemnation of STEM and praising of liberal arts never
seems helpful. All math is bad? We shouldn't teach any? Are all liberal arts
classes are equally good?

You need to discuss some sort of real curriculum. Or at least what changes
you'd make to a current one.

------
fiftyfifty
I don't think anyone is arguing that we remove liberal arts from the K-12
curriculum. There should be more to education than just vocational training,
especially at the younger grade levels. If we want to have a functional
democracy we need educated voters, and they should have a broad base of
knowledge including the liberal arts.

At the college level I think the colleges themselves are to blame for all the
animosity towards the liberal arts, they've priced themselves completely out
of the market. Not too long ago it wasn't a big deal to spend four years
getting a liberal arts degree and then going on to an MBA, Law or sales or
even a STEM field to make a living afterwards. That's exactly what the
author's wife of this article did by the sounds of it. Now that path might
mean tens of thousands of dollars of debt just for the BA, so the pressure is
on to make that investment worth while and for many it's not.

~~~
madengr
I don’t know anyone in tech who has a liberal arts degree, and I graduated 25
years ago. The authors wife probably doesn’t actually develop the tech, rather
management.

~~~
analog31
Well, if you count math and physics as liberal arts, as the ancients did, then
there's me. Granted, electronics and programming were my hobbies.

~~~
username90
Math and physics goes under STEM, so in the context of this article they are
not liberal arts.

------
mips_avatar
I agree that 10 year olds probably don't need to learn javascript and the
camps teaching that are probably not a great choice for parents. But the
authors views on STEM are awfully pessimistic. There are a lot of creative
aspects to what I do, and I don't want people thinking that it's drudgery
working in STEM.

~~~
Areading314
Noah! If you don't eat your vegetables, we're sending you back to javascript
camp this summer!

------
gumby
Having been on a school board I can tell you that it’s the Gadgrind
administrators _and_ parents who are pushing that. I would love to have the
kids receive an exciting and inspiring introduction to maths and the sciences
(and for that matter language and civics) but many of the teachers (not a
majority, but significant minority) aren’t into it and the loudest parents
certainly aren’t either. Instead the kids get rote prep aimed at where the
puck is now.

------
rdtwo
And likely coming from an upper middle class background with a social safety
net

------
sifar
I really don't understand why people are so hung up on the dichotomy of STEM
versus the liberal arts education.STEM is an orphan without philosophy and
history, and really ugly without the arts.

Growing up, kids need to be exposed to a variety of fields so that they art
grounded/aware of the basics and can pick up further study when needed.

Yes maths and science are important, but so is philosophy, economics, history,
arts, sports. They all help you understand the world around you. They help you
understand yourself. Like Heinlein said, specialization is for insects. And
school is really not the time to do that.

What is wrong is the way they are taught in almost every school. Kids are born
curious and parents/schools have become very good at sucking that curiosity
out of them to "make them a better citizen/workforce".

------
lazylizard
"being self-motivated, being sociable, and working well with others" doesnt
require formal education.

------
thundergolfer
> It's a scam as old as public education, an idea that emerged from the
> Industrial Revolution because back then the "jobs of tomorrow" were stations
> along an assembly-line

Is he suggesting here that public education is a scam? It doesn't seem so in
the later paragraphs, and that's an extreme view to hold. Also the idea I
don't think actually emerged as a way to fulfil national labour requirements.
Condorcet, I think an early French pioneer in public education systems, seemed
primarily concerned with equality, not creating labour supply.

------
mettamage
His main point is valid, education is important for becoming a well-rounded
civilian.

However

> Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of
> tomorrow is just blowing smoke

I do! Math!

Machine learning:

Lin alg

Calc

Stat/prob

Programming: understanding math gives a leg up in understanding many of the
ideas underlying.

The meta-skill that math teaches is also timeless: when you learn concept D,
you need to have a very good mastery over concepts A, B and C.

In my psychology lectures there never was such a “concept dependency hell”.

So yea math.

Also writing and articulating yourself. A rhetoric class is also timeless (if
given properly).

So yea... I could go on. I won’t but I will predict this:

If you learn how to sell

Learn how to play along

And learn math

Then those skills will immensely help you for some of the new jobs in the
future.

------
mcrad
It should be mentioned that the world's biggest problems are not really STEM
oriented, but more about the humanities: political, cultural, legal, economic,
etc. I don't think anyone is arguing directly against STEM education (as
suggested by many of the defensive comments). Point is that pretending we have
or will have shortage of qualified techies is a bit of a scam, often pitched
to gain political/financial support for tech industry.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Agreed. I'm often stunned at the ethical vacuum that defines the tech
industry, these days.

This has been personally heartbreaking, for me, as I was once a "starry-eyed
dreamer" that the tech industry would rescue the world.

Instead, it has become an ethical wasteland that puts money above all else, to
a vastly self-destructive level.

There is prior art in this. The finance industry was the same. After 1929, and
several other disasters, since, the industry has come under increasing
regulation.

~~~
mcrad
Heartbreaking is the word for me too. I started out more in ops research and
did well, but after the early 2000s dotcom bust thought it would be wise to
pivot toward software. Mythical job of tomorrow as it were. Now surrounded by
charlatans and it seems there is no escape!

------
mojo74
Projectors are the future of education:

[https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-
how-t...](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-
technology-corrupts-education/)

------
yibg
Spoken (I guess written) like an out of touch, over privileged idealist. Sure,
forget about being able to get a job and make money down the line, that’s not
that important. /s

------
Merrill
Schools and colleges should prepare students to earn a living. Once they can
do that, they can educate themselves by reading and taking courses for the
rest of their lives.

------
eucryphia
"My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep
our schools focused exclusively on vocational training..."

That's only a problem when you have a monopoly supplier.

~~~
schwartzworld
I don't understand. what do you mean?

------
jamisteven
This guy actually educates children?

------
bullen
Japan has removed all humanist subjects from thier universities.

I would refer to these STEM subjects in this order instead, because thats how
they depend: math, physics, chemistry and biology. MPCB does not sound as good
though.

As for jobs they do not exist; only work exists, and you need to spend energy
to do it.

One last thing, we need to have more female teachers in these subjects, since
they are not trying to keep secrets.

Men keep secrets to get what they want, which mostly is women.

