And if our efforts to equip these students with automation-resilient, transferable skills are not successful in these clusters, we risk the possibility of, once again, funneling disadvantaged students into low-wage, low-opportunity occupations. CTE’s “dark history” becomes its future.
This is quite scary and depressing thought. I guess as educators we can try our personal best to impart transferable and soft skills on our students. The "one child at a time" idea
First, average automation risks decrease as education level goes up, largely because jobs requiring bachelor’s degrees involve a greater number of transferable skills that are less easy to automate.
One thing I'm interested in here is how many jobs actually require a bachelor's degree? I'm curious to how many workers are at each of these levels (high school, college, bachelors)
I calculated the average automation risk (weighted by total 2019 employment) for each CTE career-cluster area by entry education level
Do we think that job market stats from 2019 are terribly relevant today? I know it's only 4 years ago but society has vastly changed since Covid. Office buildings are empty (albeit workers are at home). Essential workers were the people out there doing things, interacting with tools and people
this demonstration led to some inevitable—and now ubiquitous—hand-wringing about automation and the implications for society.
Rightly so! I personally am quite worried about what it means for our society. As a side note, I feel knee-jerk reactions to it such as not having students write essays might do even more harm. While essay writing may not be a practical skill, aspects of it are critical. Ie. creative thinking, critical thinking, organizing thoughts, forming and arguing opinions
The introduction of ChatGPT last fall thrust artificial intelligence into the national consciousness,
This hits the nail on the head. I feel like ChatGTP is all I have heard about since it was released last fall. I wasn't terribly interested in it but it's been impossible to escape. I gave a digital marketing workshop to small business owners this past spring and even had to address it in my talk. I was anti using it to generate content (fyi)
It’s always been important to get these things right, but the arrival of ChatGPT means it’s now more important than ever.
I feel like to "get these things right", you almost need a crystal ball. It seems like technology is often not used in the way we anticipate or intend
The importance of—and challenges to—carving out space in every CTE classroom in every CTE career cluster for the development of transferable, nontechnical skills becomes especially salient when you analyze automation risks across the different CTE career clusters.
Absolutely agree transferable skills listed earlier in the article should be taught to ALL students. Soft-skills too. I have a friend who worked at an NGO in Mexico. Her primary job was to help educated workers on soft skills and industry expectations. There's a set of "rules" that a lot of us just know because they've been ingrained in us though our parents/society. But not everyone has this opportunity/experience
Other CTE career-cluster areas have automation risks that are high: Architecture & Construction, Hospitality & Tourism, Manufacturing, and Transportation, Distribution & Logistics.
I was surprised that Hospital and Tourism were at higher risk. I always think of personal interaction being so integral to this industry
To begin, jobs requiring skills that are difficult to automate with available technologies are at lower risk of automation. These skills include things like two-way communication, critical thinking, creativity, planning, management, and problem-solving.
I heard years ago that Masters of Fine Arts grads were more in demand by forward thinking companies, compared to MBA (business) grads. I'm not sure how accurate it was, but the reasoning was MFA grads were creative and could think out of the box. I briefly considered getting a combined MBA/ MFA which is an actual program at York
First, average automation risks decrease as education level goes up, largely because jobs requiring bachelor’s degrees
I'm wondering if this is still the case in 2023? The data is from 2019, which doesn't seem like long ago but our society has changed (been through a lot) since then.