We need to start thinking now what do we do when large sections of the population are unemployable through no fault of their own. What to do in a future where, for most jobs, humans need not apply?
Please watch this 15 minute video.
The quote, from the conclusion of the video you just watched, is a fascinating and profound question for humans to answer. What do societies do when employed work is no longer the centre of the day, week or even human lifecycle?
Young people have a vested interest in wrestling with many societal issues that are unaddressed by the prevailing political orthodoxies. What would your students make of it? What would they suggest? How could teachers structure Project Based Learning to provide opportunities to explore the ideas raised in the video?
How can the current realities young people in countries around the world, including Australia, with growing youth unemployment be discussed without making students feel despair, especially if they are from less privileged backgrounds?
In Spain, nearly half of those under 30 – almost 2 million people – cannot find a job SOURCE
How are young people in Spain responding to unemployment? What opportunities exist for all of us to seek solutions, however large and small, to this fundamental shift if how our societies structure time and endeavour?
What do you think?
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Featured image: screenshot from the video
Stu
One possible future has been predicted in one of the final scenes on Wall-E, but if we hope to avoid that, we really need to change much of what we know and do now when it comes to the workforce. As globalisation marches on and we become even more of a 24/7 society, Australia will lament the fact we only have a 23M population. We need to grow or else our supply will outgrow our local demand. We need to therefore look beyond our borders and supply products and knowledge services to the rest of the world. That means more shift work, more job sharing and more virtualisation. Education is definitely the key, but we don’t want universities spewing out more graduates each year in any particular field than there will be jobs in that field – as is happening regularly now. It should not be a case of enrolling students for the course fees, it should be about quotas that meet a nation’s needs. And it needs to be an energetic and flexible vocational education system that moves with the times and can adjust quickly to cater for emerging needs. Automation is not a risk for an evolving nation, but it is for a stagnant one. Readily accepting change is an attribute that governments and people must embrace.
BYOD @ (Y)our School - Darcy Moore's Blog
[…] social media. We also need t think about the Big Picture of what technological change will mean for Young People and employment. It is also important to engage with government policy, on a range of issues, in a balanced and […]