The death of the apprenticeship
When we watch a TV show set in the days before the industrial revolution, our beloved hero usually has a plucky sidekick, learning everything about the tricks of the trade — be it magic, monster hunting, or alchemy.
In the historical sense, it’s more likely that you would end up a smithy’s apprentice, or a librarian’s scribe assistant (given you were born into the appropriate family or were wealthy enough.) Translated into the modern-day we have internships, universities — and at a more fundamental level — schools. Thankfully some of these institutions offer more than our historical counterparts could ever have hoped for, and the modern-day population has far greater access to this type of intellectual apparatus.
That being said, I want to focus on how our modern technological society is effectively erasing the old methods of apprenticeship we see so normalized in our favourite medieval TV shows. Disclaimer, this is an opinion piece, and I hope it resonates with at least a few of you who may be reading!
My thoughts are threefold:
- School, a new thing that seems like an old thing.
- Experience vs a degree.
- Internships are a job!
2. Experience vs a degree.
Let’s be weird and start with number 2.
First off, education is super-duper important, and I totally agree with the idea of gaining the bulk of skills one needs to begin working professionally in an institution like a university or online forum. HOWEVER, I wanted to be selfish and draw attention to my own experience as a design student.
I gained a BA in Interaction Design, and have been freelancing for over a year now. Doing graphic design jobs, websites, logos, and the odd manufacturing of food products for a local deli. I do the work, and I make money from it, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I am lying when I say “I am a designer”.
Through many hours of night-time introspection when I can’t fall asleep right away, I came to the realization that the majority of skills I took away from the university were in creative software — yet the skills I needed to learn for my professional development were sorely lacking. I partially blame myself for this impostor syndrome, but cannot refute the fact that I did not have the access to industry professionals at university in the way that was promised (the institution has GREATLY improved its approach since my time there, and they have been doling out amazing talent for years now). So here I am, starved from the experiences I feel I should have had, yet I have the same piece of paper as those I view as objectively better than myself.
“So what?”
Well let’s put it like this, I feel as if one month of freelance work and talking to other designers taught me more about my industry than a year in a design institution (this may not actually be so quantifiable).
3. Internships are a job!
Number 1 can wait to the end, let’s do 3 now.
I remember having a debate/friendly chat with my family at dinner that quickly devolved into a heated argument about how interns are exploited in the modern workforce. In the end, we all came to a mutual understanding of each other’s points and qualms in regard to the topic — but I was left plainly aware of the distinct separation between employee and employer.
There are six of us, so you can bet there were a lot of opinions flying around, but this is my article; obviously, I’m going to focus on mine… and maybe a little bit on the countering opinion that helps me justify this argument.
On the one hand, we have the employer; who values profits, work done, and efficiency. On the other, we have the employee — who in my mind — is just there to offer skills in exchange for currency (and possibly a hospitable work environment in which to form meaningful bonds.)
The main point of the argument with my family was that interns are exploited on a fundamental level; somehow our society has fooled itself into thinking it’s okay to receive skills from a moderately productive worker in exchange for nothing except “experience”. Now experience is a good thing, sure! Don’t get me wrong. But most people entering an internship have ample training and are entering the workforce, probably with a similar level of impostor syndrome as I had myself. The learning period of an internship is exponential, people tend to learn quickly, especially if they have a relevant degree. It’s needless to say that after the initial grace period of settling in and learning their way around the office (which a full-time employee would need to do too, might I add), interns are often really full-time employees too. They contribute their skills, time and value towards their respective industries… so why is it acceptable that these interns could possibly be paid nothing, not even enough for a bag of chips at lunchtime?
I’ll tell you the answer, it’s not acceptable! Plain and simple. :)
The differing opinion at that family dinner I mentioned was that interns aren’t always compensated for their time because “ït’s standard practice in the industry”, to which I say PHOOEY!!! That’s not a good reason at all. Standards are only standard because we allow them to be: they are changeable, and ought to be changed if they deem themselves immoral or unjust. In an ideal world as the leader of a business, I would sooner take a sizeable chunk out of my own paycheck to help out the interns rather than let them go without a lick of appreciation for their time.
1. School, a new thing that seems like an old thing.
Finally time for number 1; sorry that took so long.
School is such a fundamental life stage for most people; we learn much of the ways of how humans go about doing human things, all in a little institution usually close to home. Something that always baffled me as a child was how inhospitable this little institution could be, how they chose to teach us according to a regimen that seemingly emerged out of nowhere… well guess what, it kind of did come out of nowhere! How funny.
The methodologies and structures behind what we call “school” are actually only a few hundred years old, probably standardized by middle-aged white men who had long forgotten how the minds of children work (Horace Mann popularised the modern form of school, in 1837).
When I refer to “a few hundred years old” as being “new”, I mean in relation to human history and civilization, which has been operating in the familiar sense for millennia. Humankind got on just fine learning things from other humans in the form of experiences and apprenticeships for far longer than we have had standardized testing and degrees. I say this not to refute the fact that times have obviously changed, and new industries call for different methods of learning… But to draw attention to how since we branched off the evolutionary tree into the twig we know as Homo-Sapiens, we have been learning in a more human way than we ever were before modern schools came about.
Today we see a slow trend of institutions moving back to this fundamental form of learning, where community learning and intersectionality come back to the foreground — all with a technological spin added into the mix.
I like to tell the story of how I could have been a millionaire by now if one teacher had fostered future thinking and intersectionality more than they bothered to. In primary school, a friend and I were tasked with doing a project on the history of the wheel; from a large lump of stone to a wooden-spoked steam-powered contraption, to the modern wheels we are used to, and everything in-between. After laying out all the relevant historical info into a rudimentary primary schooler’s interpretation of a list, I saw a strange blank globe in my teacher’s storeroom. This gave me an idea: I was tasked with outlining the history of the wheel, but could go further and project the future of the wheel too! So I asked my teacher if I could incorporate the prospect of a “future wheel” in the project. Just as quickly as I had the spark of an idea, I was shot down by my teacher, who dismissed it as nonsense. Guess what I ended up seeing in the film I-Robot a year or two later? You guessed it: spherical wheels. Isn’t it great how one idea can change everything, yet somehow we are encouraged to dismiss the ideas of young people so readily, all to focus on a curriculum that doesn’t inspire or engage learners? This is what keeps me up at night, how different would I be today if that one teacher fostered my spark of future thinking, rather than stifling it. How many people out there had the potential to do incredible things, but were shot down, and now have a sense of self-doubt where an inquisitive nature should live — I guess we’ll never know how much human potential we’ve lost for this overlooked reason.
So, to conclude this strange rant about how I hated certain aspects of school, and how there is a slow ascent to a more holistic learning experience for the youth of today. I want to say that yes, school is good, but take it with a pinch of salt! What we consider “normal” is really not that normal at all. We should focus more on how humans learn, instead of forcing them into a box formulated by a handful of people who probably had their own strange ideas on how people learn, flouting the historical significance of experiences.
The key takeaways… Experiences and degrees work best in tandem, you should really be paying your interns — and lastly — schools seem to finally be catching up with the human experience.
If you liked this article, I’d love to hear about your thoughts on the topic! Share your experiences, or just spark up a casual convo with me. Tell me all about it!
Thanks for reading to the end, shoot me a message, leave a comment or find me online on LinkedIn or my Portfolio website!
Okay, I’m done, good day, good night, goodbye! ✨
Images made with coolicons by Kryston Schwarze — coolicons.cool
