Even at this young age I find myself engaging my children in the tasks, tools and decisions I make with my business – I would love for them to take on a similar role when they enter the work force being able to work in an environment where they can follow their passion. I just need to make sure that they have the experiences required to understand what their passion might be and to experience the highs and lows of this type of employment and communicating/collaborating with others.

At least I am having the conversation with my children about finance, customers, clients, suppliers and communication; even at this early stage of life these things are becoming blurred.

I graduated from high school in 2002, and not once did I consider that I would have the same job for 40 years, slowly working my way up the job ladder. I want to have one job for awhile, make some money, move across the country, travel, maybe get another job in a totally different field, etc. My students (who will graduate in 2015) will likely be even more to the extreme, as is suggested by the article that states “fully 40% of the US workforce is predicted to be independent contractors by 2019.”

Our current sit-and-get educational system is not going to cut it for our students, now or in the future.

We know that kids are having sex now. Our response is to preach abstinence when we say anything at all, and to teach literature and history from bowdlerized texts devoid of sex or violence, and math and science from books rather than real-world experience. We pretend that school is an ideal world and that our students will go on to do versions of what Bob Cratchit and Elizabeth Bennett did.

Bah, I say. Humbug!

You suggest that we should concentrate on fundamental skills. For students at my school, this often means writing assignments by hand, for an audience of one, in a single-day turnaround time. It means learning to use a highlighter pen, and write in penmanship. It means filling out worksheets.

Let’s see… how many k-12 teachers know how to start a business? How many teachers know how to run a stock market portfolio? How many teachers know how to paint? To write a novel? To fix a motorcycle? To assemble a catapult? To build a stone wall? To dance a waltz? To compose a sonnet? To speak two foreign languages? To play in a band? To march in a parade? To participate in a town meeting? To build a house?

Are these fundamental skills? Yes. Are they taught in classrooms? No.

Will’s questions make me think regularly about what I *DO* teach, because clearly I am not teaching anything like ‘fundamental skills’. I have no idea what the skills I’m supposed to teach are ‘for’, except more school.

Of course not!

We need to think about scaffolding, developmentally appropriate lessons and fundamental skills first and last. The classroom should no more look like the workplace of the future thanthe school cafeteria should look likes the so goes bars of the future.

The jobs of the future spun like most of the jobs I have had in the past and most of the jobs my friends have today. So why should this article prompt changes?

Color me unconvinced.