The Big Answer

To link to this article from your blog or webpage, copy and paste the url below into your blog or homepage.

In this article, the Tofflers assert that education must be reinvented for the Third Wave. Our Second Wave schools are not doing the job—as anyone whose job it is to screen and hire job applicants knows only too well. He says before people complain about the factory jobs that are going away, they need to understand that this is permanent—they’ll never be back again. And the simple jobs in them will never make anyone rich—only the knowledge-based jobs requiring skill, training, problem-solving abilities, cooperation with others and computer literacy will pay well in the long run. Demagogy, protectionism, mass welfare programs, or bureaucratic solutions from social engineers are simply not the answer. Third Wave schools creating Third Wave education is the answer. Experiments with vouchers, home education, use of computers to help kids think and create, and new relationships between schools and parents will all help.

Riot police

Toffler says “It is not merely anger in the streets that is tearing the country apart. It is the failure of any political leadership to come to terms with a future that stares America . . . in the face. Where there is no vision, cliches proliferate, people perish—and cities burn.”

Police and rioters