May 14 2013: Interesting debate. I believe most kids become cashiers/burger flippers precisely because schools teach "skills". There are two fundamental problems with teaching skills:
1. The world is changing faster and faster. What skills do you teach when you cannot predict the world the adult will enter into?
2. Without curating curiosity, kids do not find their passion. The thing that drives them. And if you don't find what interests you enough to WANT to get out of bed every day you will drag yourself out of bed to some menial job.
We need to teach creativity, imagination, and complex problems solving. Then we need to trust that a passion will be found and these traits will be used to turn that passion into a fulfilled life.
Nov 19 2012: There is zero value to memorizing facts today as explained in this great talk by Seth Godin. Sir Ken Robinson also has two fantastic talks on TED (already mentioned in comments below).
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A reply on Talk: Ramsey Musallam: 3 rules to spark learning
1. The world is changing faster and faster. What skills do you teach when you cannot predict the world the adult will enter into?
2. Without curating curiosity, kids do not find their passion. The thing that drives them. And if you don't find what interests you enough to WANT to get out of bed every day you will drag yourself out of bed to some menial job.
We need to teach creativity, imagination, and complex problems solving. Then we need to trust that a passion will be found and these traits will be used to turn that passion into a fulfilled life.
A comment on Conversation: What are the limitations that keep new educational designs from being implemented tomorrow in schools and especially in higher education?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc&feature=plcp