Do you get paid to think?
A twenty-something former student of mine recently shared with incredulous delight that she “gets paid to think.” Her obvious enjoyment of going to work every day and reading, writing, and talking about ideas is what made her a teacher’s dream. But her words reveal more than personal attributes or wise career choice. She describes a world where thinking is important enough to pay for. In our supply and demand world, what better foundation for a new vision of education?
Some education visionaries — like Will Richardson — hold out hope that education reform will lead to a time when
…the emphasis will turn back to the learning process, not the knowing process. And while I don’t think schools go away in the interaction, the “new normal” will be a focus on personalization not standardization, where we focus more on developing learners, not knowers…
I wonder whether using the market driven model where people “get paid to think,” could sway the media, the public, and policy makers to push the pendulum in a direction where students are drivers of learning. It is an interesting “what if” to play with.
I wonder how many people would tell you they get paid to think. Do we even look at our roles in terms of thinking? I think not. I suspect if you polled Americans about whether they get paid to think, most would say no. Thinking gets a bad rap in our society. It is seen as the antithesis of doing or as something painful to be avoided. We are not an intellectual society, but we are swayed by money. Perhaps the first campaign to reform education is one where we get the word out. Maybe it should be a Facebook gadget:
I get paid to think.
