Careers, Counseling, and the Curriculum

Assertions that in the automated society leisure, not work, is the big problem are misleading. Whatever we do about education for leisure, education for work will remain the more urgent issue. The problems posed by automation are job problems-and they are not radically new. The disruptive effects of continued technological change can be overcome by policies that insure adequate aggregate demand and reduce structural unemployment; these include programs to civilize our welfare state. Given the nature of modern work, schools must become less vocational in their curriculum and more realistically vocational in their counseling and placement machinery. If the average young man will hold a dozen jobs in a 46-year work life, many of them not now in existence, the school cannot train for specific careers; it should instead concentrate on its educational tasks. The best vocational education now, as before, is a good general education accenting basic literacy, disciplined work habits, and adaptability-an optimal base for lifetime learning. A new type of career counselor, in command of occupational information, could combat premature vocationalism and at the same time guide the teen-ager through the maze of school curricula, training programs, jobs, and employment services.