The North American influence in our society, including in education, has forced us, at our Institute, to permanently monitor some of that country's development policies. In a 2013 book, I even formulated this attempt with an image or provocation: what if we thought of thinking of the United States as a developing country? What did the Americans do when they were on their way to this “advanced state”? How did they think, what did they do and how did they present it after it was reached? What kind of lessons did they “sell” to the lagging countries and what kind of “homework” did they actually practice? Many questions, of course not all of them answered in the book. Here's another chapter in this saga.
For about 20 years now, a debate has been developing in American intellectual circles about the formation of the “new workforce”, that which would be required for the new form of organization of companies – the so-called flexible production, replacing the Taylor factory -Fordist – and also required by new production devices, those that have “embedded intelligence” through computer systems. These two vectors of change increasingly seem to depend on richer minds more accustomed to “abstract” thinking. This assessment – the optimistic version of change – comes from a famous book by Daniel Bell on post-industrial society (1973) and was endorsed in more recent times by Robert Reich, when secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. Reich, in The Work of Nations, predicted the emergence of “symbolic analysts”, the emblematic workers of the new times.
But the change, apparently, would have an impact not only on the high levels of the workforce, but also on the terrain of blue collar, manual workers. Let us take the issue of equipment, in the strict sense, to think about other equipment (intellectual resources). Traditional mechanical devices required special care from their operators and repairmen. But the worker operated on literally “handleable” parts and elements, present before his eyes. Relatively simple instruments and apparent operations were the predominant combination. Things begin to get more complicated with the introduction of electromechanical controls – such as relays and the famous star-delta connections that were the mystery and pride of maintenance electricians. But the biggest leap was with the implementation of these movements on mysterious silicon wafers, in the form of logical instructions. Magic tablets control the movements of machines. Instead of repairing nuts and bolts, maintenance has to operate on abstract objects, logical symbols, instructions in exotic and esoteric language.
The first industrial revolution made use of pre-scientific engineering, if by science we mean the mass of knowledge produced in the 17th-18th centuries, with the so-called Galilean-Newtonian revolution. The devices of the first industrial revolution were largely invented by well-trained and experienced artisans. But the second industrial revolution – that of the late 19th century – depends heavily on other engineering, especially electrical and chemical, which is much more “Science-based” and much less intuitive.
Common sense tends to see engineering as an applied science – applied physics, applied chemistry. However, engineering is, in a sense, pre-scientific. At least in some of its branches. There is sophisticated civil engineering in the construction of Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek temples. On Roman roads and aqueducts. In medieval cathedrals. Before the physics of Newton and Galileo. Advanced mechanical engineering can also be seen in pre-modern devices. These branches of engineering operate on visible and manipulable objects – and produce mental and graphic “representations” of them. However, it is more difficult to say the same for electrical engineering, for example – its objects are only seen indirectly, through an interpretation of signals from complex devices or measurable effects, which are visible. Something similar could be said about other “engineering” such as molecular engineering.
Thus, the models constructed by science distance themselves from common sense understanding, but allow man to operate on the world with astonishing results. Amazing is the term, by the way. After all, for the “man in the street”, someone who is not a scientist nor has a reasonably cold understanding of science, this connection between “abstract” theories and the reality that they allow to change will seem like a miracle.
Faced with such opacity and mystery, two equally perverse effects or attitudes can be produced: a) reverence and sacralization (attributing to the wise an enormous power, authority, inaccessible to ordinary mortals); b) fear and, at the limit, hostility, refusal.
Education policies – including and above all those involving the transition to adulthood, the working age – must respond to this challenge. By definition, it is impossible to predict the unprecedented. But it is possible to imagine the conditions that provide or favor the emergence of something new – and, from there, train individuals to receive this new thing. Familiarization with science, the policy of “popularizing” science also has the important mission of preventing the new – scientific and technological – from being viewed with suspicion and even hostility.
Therefore, advanced education – at secondary or higher level – needs to unfold along two complementary lines: the production of new knowledge and the dissemination and popularization of knowledge already acquired and recognized as valid. They are not necessarily carried out in the same institutions, nor with the same methods or for the same audiences. Articulating your connections is a challenge of good public policy. It must also be a challenge for professors at so-called “excellent” universities.