Читать книгу The Lessons School Forgot - Steve Sammartino - Страница 8

As the birth child of the industrial revolution, school taught us survival skills for a bygone era. Educators and governments have deftly moved to ensure the graduates of tomorrow arrive prepared for the technological era by focusing on what they call STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. The problem is that STEM is not enough. In fact, this re-emphasis, on its own, really won't help much at all, because it is just more of what we've been taught historically, with a different angle of approach. What we need to do is add the two missing E's of Economics and Entrepreneurship, so STEM becomes ESTEEM.

By adding the missing E's, we have a chance to build people's esteem. We give people an opportunity to become more human and to live an adventure as modern-day economic explorers carving out a new path for themselves. When we share the lost arts of entrepreneurship and self-reliance, a spark we all had as kids is reignited so brightly that it becomes a beacon to guide others.

ESTEEM recognises that we need each other, that some non-technical skills, as you'll see, create value that makes previously invisible STEM visible. They create more value than is offered by anything else we attempt, because without the spirit of exploration, even in an economic sense, we'd all still be living in caves. Building an economy around the idea of ESTEEM means appreciating the wide variety of viewpoints and natural faculties we have to offer. Tech Hackers, Design Hipsters and Sales Hustlers meet in the middle and make something great together. When we add the missing E's we give everyone who believes they have a chance a tilt at an independent future. If we want future-proof kids, and grown-ups, we all need ESTEEM.

For too long science and maths have been largely ignored in wider society. We glorify celebrity and sporting achievement, but technologists are rarely recognised. I've lost count of how many sports people have been named Australian of the Year; it really is ‘fall of Rome' stuff. But it does feel like the tide is turning. As end users of technology, society is starting to value science on a personal level, and it's about time. More and more kids are learning to code, to hack, to experiment with robotics – it feels like an exciting shift. But if we reconfigure their minds only to science, without addressing economics and entrepreneurship, we are still just teaching them to participate in someone else's game, and we all deserve more than that.

We need to be able to take what we know and convert it into income, to participate in the market not only to get a good job but also to create jobs for ourselves and others. Even better, we can look towards inventing new industries that don't even exist yet, and all the technology in the world can't do that, because technology without practical application, in the form of customers and a market, is just a discovery. The people developing the wizardry of tomorrow deserve to be the beneficiaries of what they create. In fact, anyone doing anything deserves the dignity of knowing how to manage their own future, and this is what The Lessons School Forgot is all about.