Learning Without Dimensions Essay, Research Paper

LEARNING WITHOUT DIMENSIONS

In their essay, respectively, The Age of Social Transformation by Drucker and The New Humanities: Readings for the Twenty-First Century, Miller and Spellmeyer outline and discuss on some improvements on the contemporary education. Education in the United States has always been mainly in service by the public. Should or would education still be given by the public or other non-profit organizations is the question the twenty-first century has to decide. In the twentieth century the world has experienced many changes. One of these important changes was from the need of compulsory education to the need of knowledge workers in the society. Both authors forget to mention or do not address if every society is able to afford or capable of having minimal level of education.

In our time there are three parts of the world where higher education or even at least the level of high school is accomplished. These three are North America, Europe, (mainly western Europe) and Japan. These countries, which have the capability due to their economic standing and continued progress in economic well-being, are able to accomplish high standards in education. The so-called developing or transforming economies of the world, which has the majority of population are well off the level of minimal education. Many developed countries right now are in need and continue to put emphasis on knowledge workers. In order to have best jobs and best skills available to them, the people of this so called other world is in need of great education reform. With the increase need of knowledge workers, the developing world is still behind their educational system. In order to have knowledge workers in their society, they need the tools and materials that they can provide to their students. To become a knowledge worker, they need computers, satellite, and other forms of technological materials. A child or a student in a developed nation has more than is needed capability in having access to these instruments. As Drucker notes in his essay that knowledge workers require a good deal of formal education and the ability to acquire and to apply theoretical and analytical knowledge. They require a different approach to work and a different mind set. Above all, they require a habit of continuous learning (Drucker, 229). The industrial worker, who does not need formal education or above all education at all, will have a disadvantage in the twenty first century competing with the knowledge worker. It is impossible for a shift from industrial work to knowledge-based work without formal education. For one to become a knowledge worker they are in need of formal education and societies are in need of institutions that will provide these services.

The institutions that will provide these services should be private or non-profit organizations or as Drucker coins, social-sector (Drucker, 238). These institutions can be provided efficiently and equally to population by non-governmental organizations. In order to have that leverage a knowledge worker needs, developing countries can have schools or institutions that are from social sector or private organizations of other developed nations. This is possible in the form of providing the institutions and materials that are needed in those countries by non-governmental institutions. These are non-profit organizations and privately established institutions. There are and continue to increase in numbers today around the world many schools that are formed by private funds from different countries. These institutions provide formal education to students in those countries for a very low fee. Not every nation wants and is willing to accept foreign institutions in their territory, because they are aware and wary of the influence that those institutions can have on their students. In order to overcome this situation, organizations and institutions have to purely be private for the interest of the students to gain knowledge. These institutions should not influence their own ideologies or beliefs on to students.

Education can give you the knowledge and skills, but one has to know how to use that knowledge in relation to the world. In Miller and Spellmeyer s idea the term mimetic and connective thinking is used to describe this dilemma (Miller & Spellmeyer, 17). Miller and Spellmeyer note, mimetic thinking: the student learns to reproduce information already collected and organized by someone else. Once we encounter the limits or defects of knowledge on occasions like these, mimetic thinking can not help; instead we are obliged to think connectively to think across domains of knowledge rather than thinking from the inside (Miller & Spellmeyer, 17). In order to be a knowledgeable individual, students have to connect the information learned in classrooms to the real current issues. They should use knowledge learned in classroom and exposed to information outside the classroom, in their own difficulties or challenges that life brings on. In other words, reproducing the information that has already been collected and organized would only make that person regurgitate out the same information. It will not produce new information or even, it will not challenge that information which had been collected and organized by someone else. As Miller and Spellmeyer emphasized, Drucker believes in same way about becoming a knowledgeable individual in a knowledge society. In the knowledge society, clearly, more and more knowledge, and especially advanced knowledge, will be acquired well past the age of formal schooling and increasingly, perhaps, through educational processes that do not center on the traditional school. But at the same time, the performance of the schools and the basic values of the schools will be of increasing concern to society as a whole, rather than being considered professional matters that can safely be left to educators (Drucker, 233).

With the increase of knowledge-based work and the importance that it has in the future we had seen two authors argue for an educational reform. It would definitely be hard for someone to believe that knowledge will not be as much important as today. It is clear that it would have much more importance in the future than today. The majority of jobs would be asking for knowledgeable employee. This coming century will definitely be competitive. Employers in this era will not just look at degrees, but even if they did will not matter. Due to increase in demand for knowledge worker, there will be more schools and eventually more people with formal education. This will be an era more competitive than any other era. There are certain issues the authors forget to mention. With the increase of knowledge-based work, especially in the developed nations, there are more job opportunities in these countries. The knowledge workers in the advanced countries get benefits and salaries that are well beyond off decent. This trend would cause many employees with formal education in developing nations to be employed by many organizations and firms in the advanced nations. Which economically advanced countries already have the highest proportion of knowledge workers compared to other nations. Developing nations, which already have limited resources, will have difficulties competing with advanced countries. Drucker claims, The knowledge society will inevitably become far more competitive than any society we have yet known for the simple reason that with knowledge being universally accessible, there will be no excuses for non-performance. There will be no poor countries. There will be only being ignorant countries. And the same will be true for companies, industries, and organizations of all kinds (Drucker, 234).

In conclusion, there is a definite need of educational reform in the world, including developed and developing world. But, many individuals in the developed nations believe with the world transforming from industrial workers to knowledge workers, the world is becoming more competitive. The question we have to ask ourselves is this for the benefit of the developing nations or not. The world increasing with more knowledge led societies, incredibly with the innovative uses of technology, the developing nations lack and could not afford institutions and materials that are needed to have knowledge workers. Becoming a knowledge worker is definitely much harder in developing nations than that of the developed nations. Increasingly, an educated person will be somebody who has learned how to learn, and who continues learning, especially by formal education, throughout his or her lifetime (Drucker, 233).