Economic players

Years ago when I was doing training in the workplace, I learned a useful distinction between education and training.  I learned that education is understanding and interpreting information, whereas training is using that understanding to do something.

Training makes appropriate use of the behaviorist model of learning I discussed in the last post.

Much of what we call education is actually training.  People who go to school to be dental hygienists, medical billers, network administrators, payroll clerks, corrections officers, construction managers, fashion merchandisers, or administrative assistants are being trained to do something.  (So are people who go to school to be doctors.)

Some private post-secondary schools that have training as their main goal now throw in liberal arts classes like Humanities and Environmental Science to qualify them to grant degrees.  In my experience, this just annoys the students, who often feel like the victims of a bait-and-switch scheme.  They are glad to have the degree but have no interest in paying extra money for studies that don’t move them toward getting a job.

And what is wrong with wanting to get a job?  Not a thing.

Most young people in the U.S. long for independence, and as a culture, we encourage that.   They want to earn money to buy things and experiences.  There is plenty of evidence that although they probably need specialized training, they may not need a four-year degree to get a good job.

So by all means let us train them to be financially independent.  But let’s stop telling them or ourselves that what we are doing is educating them.

What we are doing is preparing them to be producers and giving them the means to be good consumers and taxpayers.  We are preparing them to function as part of the economy.