I’m a context guy so I’m going to tell you a lot about where I came from to where I am now to tell you where I’m afraid we are going. a product of a small high school with a graduating class of 20. Vo-tech two years which lead to a great career using those skills. Parents had a restaurant from 6th grade to graduation. Paper route twice a day then once a day through high school, lifelong friends. Late in life college graduate, and here I am, just five months shy of my five year anniversary of retirement. My third year of teaching high school has come to a close. A lot of lessons learned. If it for my teaching/admin family, it would have been impossible to get this far.
Here is where I stand at 56.
A literal (as far as a typical GenX learned as a kid) thirty year, start to finish, gold watch ending career. Happily living a bachelor life, with few responsibilities and a lot of time for my insatiable and probable brain malfunction type curiosity. Yeah, I learn how to live in Vladislav on 840 Rubles or $10 a day, or watching a Japanese craftsman craft a sword, or a man in Utah sand casting some amazing art because my brain says it’s curious at 3:49 a.m….
Have an ex-wife (she and her husband are good and we frequently talk and care about each other) and two amazing, independent, professional daughters, mom, brother, nieces and nephews, some extended family like cousins but my dad’s side is gone. Mom’s side a great aunt and my aunt and uncle.
Countless social friends, few close friends, regretfully too many ex-girlfriends, a great teacher work family, a super supportive admin staff up to the top level.
I spent thirty years of my life in a small and tight knit, very secure community. Same routine, same shop, same people, same jobs, same color aircraft, same parts, same inspections, same generous holidays, same, same, same…for three decades.
A little more time off each year, more job security each year, sometimes a lot more money each year, same buddies, new stories, new hobbies, new novels, then audibles during downtime or while painting or sanding so you kind of educated yourselves with whatever you were interested in at the time.
And with our pay you had the resources to get the top of the line whatever we’re interested in at the time. Some guys it was deer plots. Drag cars. Bigger boats. Longer fishing or hunting trips. New truck. Bigger retirement account.
You grew up with them. Some came, some left, some died. We all shared the same experiences for the majority of our lives. You started the new guy and then you were the old guy in the shop.
I really identify with Shawshank Redemption. I admit I became institutionalized in a way. I suppose this blog is a document to all of that and how I got to here and now almost five years after leaving that life and not allowed to go back. I lost my way when I had to find a new purpose. Only looking back now do I see how much like Brooks I was.
I own my house, car, numerous skills, unstoppable work ethic, and learning more skills or how to introduce more tangible skills to my students. I’m working on becoming a much better teacher. A unstoppable drive to be self sustainable with a freeze dryer on layaway.
A bachelors and masters degree in marketing, but over 700 unanswered job applications. Over 2200 safe trips as a Spark Driver during what was a genuine small golden age of my life. Over 1300 taxi trips. A year as a budtender during the true Wild West Oklahoma days of 2018-2019!
A good understanding of how real teachers operate, how much they love their job and being teachers. They were made for it, they knew what they wanted to do. It’s their life, love, passion, and core!
Here is what we face, a dozen A.I. companies that are spending trillions to create something that has never existed before. Not since the atomic bomb has anything had the potential to be more destructive except a bomb can’t replicate and improve itself, by itself. This is coming sooner than later. The world economy is at stake and AI control over that by one single AI company. They aren’t stopping.
Industries will replace humans with AI, degrees will become more useless, colleges will close or consolidate as more students realize the cost isn’t worth the reward, leaving public schools to prepare students for?
What?
We can’t funnel them to college anymore. It’s conceivable that within three years 80% to 90% of degrees will be obsolete with a cheaper AI replacement.
Schools will need to pivot to teaching tangible skills. We need to be teaching the basics in the morning and building a house in the afternoon. When you can’t make a living because the jobs are gone, what can else you do? You need a trade or some other tangible marketable skillset.
I’ve had one full lifetime, I’m on a bonus life now and have some great skills, and am a master at problem solving, Columbo is my all time favorite TV character. That’s why I can say public education has to change now for our soon to be future.
