Thinking about what we do and don’t teach made this video that I got from a Facebook friend an interesting thing to watch. What do you think the jobs of tomorrow are? I know that one of the things I find most unfortunate is the way that many of the schools in the poorest districts are unable to provide technology expertise for their students.

All children pick up gaming in some way, some friend or family member has something they can play with or on if they don’t have access at home. However, there is a significant difference between playing a game and attaching a file to an email, uploading documents to online storage or an external drive, and using the internet to get your work done. Children do not intuitively learn which websites are biased and how to judge the validity of a site without specific instruction. How do they learn that if we are not providing computer classes or a class where instruction in 21st century skills is a main part of the instructional objectives? Some schools have the budget to include classes like that and some don’t. What do the children who go to schools who can’t afford those classes do? How do parents and teachers make up for the budget cuts which are taking innovation out and replacing it with options which are, in the short term at least, cheaper?

This article, run by Bloomberg.com is more food for thought on the topic. What are we preparing students for if we are not preparing them to get a job and/or go to college? It’s time to stop and think about what we are doing to education because in the name of equalizing it we appear to be making the gap bigger with every passing year.