Commentary: Focus on career rather than learning does students a disservice

Mesa Verde Community Inc. presented an excellent forum for Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee candidates. All the candidates would bring good qualities and useful insights to the school board.

However, I am troubled by a theme running through some of the discussion: too much focus, too early, on students choosing a career path.

I sense this is a response to pressure from anxious parents worried about their children finding good jobs after high school or college. This is a time of high unemployment and under-employment, even for bright, well-educated new graduates, but it will not last forever.

It would be a great mistake to channel teenage students into preparing for today’s jobs instead of providing them the comprehensive education they will need for the next 50 years or so of rapid social and technological change.

The teens and 20s should be a time for opening, not closing, doors of opportunity. Even those students who opt out of college by choice or necessity would do well to prepare for post-secondary education, because young people are still growing and changing. Tomorrow’s adults need, above all, the ability to educate themselves to keep up with and adapt to a changing environment.

Career-oriented courses can be a very good thing if they supplement, rather than replace, academically oriented courses. But career preparation should not be a distraction from the kind of education that encompasses critical thinking, self-directed learning and life-enhancing arts.

Parents and schools must collaborate on preparing children for the long run. The survival of the American republic depends on citizens who can think for themselves and sort out the kernels of truth from the chaff of political and commercial propaganda.

ELEANOR EGAN lives in Costa Mesa.