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This a topic I've never considered. Hmm. I agree that it's unfair. You are
right that much of our education is driven by business needs. So I think the blame lies less with business, and more with educators that did not stay attuned to the modern trends. I graduated high school in 1992, just before the internet took off. I had very little experience with computers. Luckily, my college forced me to buy a computer and put me on the internet. I'm very thankful that the education instituion steered me in the right direction.
posted by
t_rat
on September 28, 2004 at 6:23 PM
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Whim, all excellent points
I cannot argue with anything you've said, but I also have to stand by my post and here's why.
A little background: I started teaching myself computers when I was 14 on a TRS-80 at the Radio Shack store. I used to hang out there after school and the manager would let me play around with it. Then when I was a junior in HS in 1980, I had my first programming class. I'm 41, so computers have been a part of my life for 27 years. I took typing in Jr. High, but wasn't very good at it. When I graduated HS I was fairly good at 2-finger hunting and pecking. When i was 21, I had a job where I had to enter a nightly log, so I used that time to teach myself to type. I built up my speed and eventually became a typist. I can pull off about 85 WPM on a good day.
I got the idea for that post as I was watching one of my employees, who has come a very long way with the computer, hunting and pecking on the keyboard to enter an email address. I was just thinking, if the school had just added one requirement and cut back a little in a couple of other areas to make up for it. I am a floor supervisor at a newspaper. We are in a situation where the employees have had to choose between computers and remaining employed. The wax paste-up process we used 10 years ago when I started there is over 99% gone. We have had and continue to have whole processes phased out. Some employees have retired rather than move to the computer.
This little bit of preparation would have gone quite a ways to preventing some of the apprehension about using the keyboard that I have observed in employees who have had computer use added to their duties.
posted by
AlienInsomniac
on September 28, 2004 at 10:22 AM
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Where to start here? First, typing and keyboarding aren't quiet the same thing. Second, I'd think an apology for not forcing all students into home ec would take priority. Third, I can't tell you the number of people I grew up with, or older, who may or may not have taken typing, who don't have any use for the computer. They may know just enough to get by and won't consider knowing more unless they are put into a situation where they have to know more to keep their job. Often that is too late.
Perhaps the better answer is for people to accept computers are here to stay and if they want to stay employed or get promoted, they will have to take the iniative to learn it themselves. The resources are out there to do it.
posted by
Whim
on September 28, 2004 at 2:25 AM
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