The advent of extracurriculars and activities that were economically driven was a breakthrough for American schooling. For the first time there was a common thought that for our economic system to flourish, first our education system must prepare out youngest generation for the future, whether it be vocationally or be setting up programs to train our youngest in these practices.
While there were a lot of benefits from this, I think that this can somehow diminish the potential of an individual. If you put a hammer in an adolescents hand and teach him to build a house, he will want to be a smith, a builder of some sort. But this same person has not made his own choice. Meaning, we should not sway the ambition of children for our countries economic needs. They should fall into the craft in which they desire, not that which they are placed.
I am not proclaiming that teaching children skills is a negative, only that we must be careful. Careful that the child learning to sew rugs might not also be a great businessman/woman some day. Or that the gardener could not also be a great school principal. It is important to let a human find themselves and not force them into one profession for the selfishness of a government’s economic development.
