A Question for Baby Boomers -- and anyone else interested.
This is a simple question on the surface, I think, but one that, as an educator, I'm more and more curious about. It was provoked by Ken Robinson's speech on Education and Creativity and thinking about what today's kindergartners will need to know during their lifetime.
With that in mind, I started to think about how did I, born the BOOM year of the Baby Boom (1949 -- the year more people were born in the U.S. than any other, before or since!), manage to adapt to life in 1999, the year I turned 50?
Certainly nothing in my "formal" education (that is, courses I took, things I learned in school) seemed to prepare me for cell phones, cable t.v., computers and the Internet. But here I am -- and doing pretty well, actually. So, what was it in my education -- formal and informal -- that led me to survive so well in my native land?
I have answers for myself but what I'm curious to learn is what others think prepared them to deal with the world by age 50 -- even though our schooling could never have anticipated the world we live in!
Behind this is my "educator" persona, of course, wondering "How can I better prepare people to teach those who will turn 50 in 2049?"
So, all that said -- and even if you're not 50, or not even near 50 -- here's what I'd like people to write to me about:
What in your education, formal or informal, prepared you to live in the "modern"/present world? How is it that you've survived and what skills have allowed you to do so --- and where/how did you learn them?
Please Please Please let me know:
bil.johnson@yale.edu
wjohnson125@comcast.net
I'll start posting selected responses, as well as my "findings," as I collect them.
Thanks!