I was once again fortunate enough to help judge some events at the Eastern States Exposition as well as getting the opportunity to touch base with Agricultural Education teachers from throughout the Eastern section of the country. What I experienced this past weekend was so similar to what we find here that it merits attention.
Despite the fact that so many people attend the Big E for reasons other than agriculture and education, the fair actually has, like our small fairs in the hilltowns, its start as a livestock show. Similar to our local fairs, the Big E also does a significant amount of work to educate the public about the myriad types of agriculture and its importance in our lives. These fairs take 4-H and FFA members and provide opportunities for competition with the Big E serving as a major competition for these members. As I met with these competitors from across New England and the east coast, I was again reminded of how talented, dedicated, and prepared these students were and how well they would meet the needs of the future in terms of agribusiness. Despite how often we hear and read about the current young people not being as ‘good’, as ‘dedicated’ or as ‘community minded’ as past generations, I see in these competitors the same drive for success as each of us can see in our own students. If we look at Gateway’s graduates and follow their college and career paths we too can see much success, hard work, and community spirit demonstrating that the future is not lost but will be taken up by a new generation.
As with so many perceptions, it seems like the idea that each succeeding generation is not as good as the present or past generations is repeated as a given. If this were true in fact, wouldn’t we have already seen the end of civilization? If we look at the changes occurring throughout the world, and the need to stay ahead of the knowledge curve, we may have to acknowledge that the world we live in today is not the world of our parents. Generations ago the young had a good idea of what they’d be doing when they grew up because change was minimal and upward mobility was very limited, often being dependent on family circumstances. While in part family circumstances still help dictate success based upon social-economic status, the rapidity of change is bringing new opportunities that are less dependent on the current status quo. The unfortunate side effect of this is the unknown as we really have no idea what the future career paths and opportunities will be, hence the need to develop broad skills that are adaptable to many situations (after all, who would have thought 20 years ago that ‘game design’ would be one of the fastest growing and most lucrative jobs of today).
Just as our towns are struggling with how to grow economically in an era of ‘knowledge jobs’ where the most important items are not the availability of raw resources but rather the ability to have broadband access so that collaboration can occur globally, education and our local institutions such as our small town fairs are struggling to remain relevant in a world in which success can’t be simply measured by how well we met the evaluative criteria of the past. Those individuals and organizations that can rapidly evolve and adapt to the new will, just as in the past, be successful. The difference now is that the speed of this evolution must be significantly faster to meet the increasing pace of change. Unfortunately for many of us in the public sector, we are often hamstrung by the reality that government (and the related regulations and requirements) is one of the slowest to evolve, thus, for example, mandating standardized testing that has so little relevance to the real world our students will be facing as they enter the adult world. How we handle change moving forward will determine in large part our success in both the near and long-term as individuals and institutions.
