Look Back for the Future

Many Filipino families subscribe to the notion that a college education is necessary for success. All over the country, hardworking parents continually admonish their children “The only thing we can bequeath is a good education.” But what if a college education in the wasn’t necessary for success? Even worse, what if a college education didn’t prepare you for success?



If financial stability were the sole measure of success, then certainly the many young Filipinos who are employed as call center agents may be considered successful. Certainly, many well-meaning citizens who express a sincere concern for the welfare of the less fortunate point to the booming business process outsourcing (BPO) industry as a boon to many struggling Filipino families. Furthermore, one need not finish college to be employed as a call center agent. One merely needs some facility with spoken English. The undeniable financial success that many Filipinos have achieved in the BPO industry might tempt us into thinking that perhaps our country’s institutions of higher learning, which use the liberal arts as the foundation of their curriculum, should focus on more useful, practical instruction.


However, it seems futile to focus on delivering "useful, practical instruction". Revolutionary educator Karl Fisch once observed “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been invented yet, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet. ” By the time we’ve prepared a student for a particular task by providing a specific set of skills to meet a definite goal, that student has been educated into obsolescence.


In his book The Idea of a University, Cardinal John Henry Newman suggested that “the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study of science” should be encouraged to explore life in all its richness, both in part and as a whole, keeping in mind that while everything is connected somehow, it is man’s beautiful burden to nurture the creative chaos that teems just below the surface and produce something worthwhile.


Cardinal Newman might have written these words more than a century ago, but he could easily have been describing this wonderful, vibrant, increasingly connected world that we live in today. Perhaps to prepare for jobs that don’t exist, to use technologies that haven’t been invented, and to solve problems we don’t know will be problems yet, we don’t have to be too forward thinking. Maybe all we have to do is look back.

Credits:


Many thanks to Brian Belen for recommending that I follow Karl Fisch. While I might hog more bandwidth than a person of my modest intellectual resources should, Brian deserves a wider audience. His work is crisp, clear and concise. And yes, I hate him. But please do read him!