Crisis Proofing Today’s Learners

Jean Eddy, President and CEO of American Student Assistance, joined me to discuss career preparation for young people. We talked about the lessons from Jean’s new book, Crisis-Proofing Today’s Learners (buy it here!), including the importance of the middle school years, necessary attitudinal shifts, and striking the balance between passion and practicality. For those who are paid subscribers, I look forward to the conversation in the comments—and Jean and I look forward to sharing more content with you all soon with a new partnership we have in the works! More to come!

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Michael Horn:

Welcome to the Future of Education, where we are passionate about building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. To help us with that journey today, I'm delighted that we have Jean Eddy. She's the president and CEO of ASA, American Student Assistance, a great thinker, great friend, and author of a very important book. We'll delve into many interesting things that Jean is doing. It's titled Crisis-Proofing Today's Learners. Jean, so good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

Jean Eddy:

Absolutely. My pleasure, Michael.

Thank you for reading The Future of Education. This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Ikigai Concept

Michael Horn:

No, it's all mine. Trust me. So let's get into it. It's a terrific book, and for those who are wondering, should I buy it or not buy it? It's a fast read, but it packs so much information in each chapter, reframing how we think about the choices that young people have before them in their lives. But I want to start up front with this concept of Ikigai in your book. Tell us what that is and why it's so important.

Jean Eddy:

Well, I think that the Japanese absolutely got this right, where they were trying to provide a balance to an individual that would give them a full and meaningful life. Ikigai is about helping a young person figure out what they love, what they're good at, what the world needs—which is very important—and what they can be paid for. If you can provide those things over the course of a young person's lifetime or journey, then they have an opportunity to have that successful, meaningful, and happy life that Japan and, I would have to say, other countries aspire to.

Michael Horn:

Yeah. It's such an important concept, balancing self and purpose with contribution to the world and society, and what you can get paid for. So it's not just underwater basket weaving or something like that. Although maybe that's more important in the future. I don't know. But I guess I'm curious, in your mind, when an education system specifically, in a society specifically gets Ikigai right, what does that look like, and how far off are we from that today in America?

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Jean Eddy:

Oh, boy. I would say that we're pretty far off. I'll start with the latter question. I think we are so focused within our systems about all the things that we believe young people need to have. It's really more about the basics and what we need to impart to our kids and less about this whole idea of discovery. I am a real fan of discovery work in that kids are looking for relevance, and oftentimes they can't see it in what they are doing in their classwork. They don't know how it relates to what they care about or what they see. In so much of the research we do, we find that kids oftentimes are even leaving high school without a sense of what they're good at. How is that possible? If our systems were more focused on that self-identification, what am I good at? What am I interested in? And then build from there, we could start to see the kind of change that we need to make in order to have our kids have the United States version of ikigai.

Reevaluating College for All

Michael Horn:

So part of the outgrowth of this focus on Ikigai is, and I think this speaks to the US as well, you have this really strong set of chapters in the book that push back on the college-for-all narrative. I have not been a college-for-all person for a long time, but your book really made me think about it in a different light. A huge part of your point is that when people say everyone should go to college, they're reducing risk for young people. But your argument, and it's really persuasive, is that actually for many people, by pushing them to go to college, we're increasing their risk. While this may seem prescient in our current moment, some people are waking up to this. Just tell us about your thinking about how for some people, college is actually increasing risk, and that's not something that I think has been popularly understood.

Jean Eddy:

Well, a college education is a really expensive endeavor. This is not something that you can ignore any longer when front page news is that some institutions cost $90,000 to $100,000 a year to attend. Think about the young person and their family who says, "We're going to go to college because that's what's expected, and I'm going to figure it out when I get to college." If you have limitless funds, that might work for you; you could stay in college for a number of years and finally figure it out. But I would say most people don't fall into that boat. Most kids come to college and they have some kind of sense of maybe what they want to do, but most don't. They end up either switching majors, which prolongs the time in college and costs money.

But I'm more worried about two populations of kids. The first is they go to college, they can't figure it out, they've stayed there long enough to accrue some debt, and now they leave college. They don't really have a path to how they're going to repay this loan, and they get into trouble early. The other population that I think we need to focus on are those kids who make choices about college being the default, but can't afford it, so they do nothing. That is a huge number of kids in the United States right now. It's something like 5.5 million people who are in this situation. Our society cannot afford that. Look beyond the individual happiness and purpose of those individuals. What about the impact on our society and the number of individuals who really don't have a purpose or a plan?

Michael Horn:

Yeah.

Jean Eddy:

That just breeds all kinds of crises.

Michael Horn:

Yeah. Wow. So it's interesting because I think you're right. When we did our book *Choosing College*, we found out a significant number of individuals were going exactly as you said because it was expected of them. They weren't particularly passionate about it. In our data set, 74% of those students transferred or dropped out because they couldn't find a compelling reason to stay there when it got tough, and college was tough. So what you just painted is really significant. I didn't realize, as you said, 5.5 million individuals are doing nothing.

Jean Eddy:

Nothing.

Michael Horn:

Wow.

Jean Eddy:

They're not in school and they're not doing anything.

Michael Horn:

Wow. That's chilling. Yeah, that's chilling. So in your mind, what I think the book starts to do is it starts to say, let's reset this societal narrative around the primacy of college. I'm curious what a better, more balanced set of potential pathways might look like in your mind for students.

Jean Eddy:

Well, I think first and foremost, it is this whole world about exploration and discovery. We've got to do a better job really early on. Our focus at ASA is on middle school because it provides an opportunity for young people whose brains are just hungry like sponges for all the information we can provide. This is the time when they can really become self-aware. And then I'm not just talking about self-awareness; I'm talking about showing them all the possibilities. We just don't do a good job of showing kids what all the possibilities are. The job is often, "Okay, let's get kids through middle school, through high school. They're going to college." It's not about what opportunities young people could have to explore all the options that are open to them. I keep talking about skilled trades because we have young people who have the aptitude and the desire to get into those areas, but we don't show them what's possible how to do it, or the skills needed for it.

Plumbers, for instance, aside from making a very good wage in Massachusetts, many of them have to be entrepreneurs. They need to have a business sense and a business plan. There are all kinds of things about skilled trades that we don't open the doors to our young people to tell them, "These are the kinds of things you need to be successful in these areas." How can someone know if they are suited to a particular job if we don't even show them what those jobs are? We can do a better job of doing that while they're in school.

Starting Career Exploration in Middle School

Michael Horn:

Yeah. So talk to us about that, because this is something you've, over several years now, have opened my eyes to about the importance of this. Middle school is when you all focus. Why middle school? Why is that the critical age when that exploration should start? And are there schools or programs out there that you're like, follow them, do what they're doing?

Jean Eddy:

Oh, yeah, totally. Well, first and foremost, when you think about middle school, not only does it give you an opportunity to work with a young person or to enlighten a young person who has not developed, or bought into what all our other friends are doing, but they're willing to go out and explore, ask questions, and do those kinds of things that can help them figure things out with all those other things bothering them. They are less stressed about what's going on in their world. Then, in just a few years, they're going to be highly stressed because they're in high school and they're worrying about all these things. One of the things I learned early on when investigating when was a great time to start talking to kids about careers is I actually read a study by ACT, and they were talking about the fact that there are certain things kids need to get while they're in middle school so that they can make good choices about what they do in high school. Think about it. These middle school kids have got to pretty much determine, okay, what is it I want to study in high school? It's not so dictated as it once was. If you make the wrong choice about a course you're going to take in high school and then find out later on that doesn't comport with what it is you need for that next step, suddenly you're out of luck. So middle school, to me, is absolutely prime time for all those reasons. Now, I think you've heard me say this a thousand times, Michael. I mean, the national model of how to do this well is in Cajon Valley and, you know, World of Work schools to be able to start working with kids. They do it early. They do it starting in kindergarten, where they have kids discover their talents and abilities, but then they make the courses that kids take in high school, even middle school, relevant so that they can go exploring. You can see all kinds of things to test and try.

Michael Horn:

Yeah.

Jean Eddy:

Now, there are some great schools out there that are doing things, with the CAPS Network, that are basically allowing kids to do hands-on things to discover if what they think they are interested in is actually what they would like to pursue further. We need to start, and it is happening, but it's happening in pockets. There are schools in New York that we talked to. There are some in Massachusetts who are embracing these kinds of philosophies, but it's not widespread, and I would say it needs to be if we're going to impact this.

Resetting Expectations on Alternative Pathways

Michael Horn:

Yeah. So I'm curious, what's the way forward for realizing that vision and getting more schools on board? Right. You're obviously, as you just, named a bunch of really interesting examples. There's CAPS, Cajon, and different schools that are doing some very cool things. How do we, you obviously have a lot of bottoms-up work. Right? You all also have digital platforms out there that allow young people to engage and learn about different career pathways and so forth. But it seems like a lot of this is in resetting the narrative and sort of societal expectations about how we think about these alternative pathways. So I'm just curious, about how we do that.

In your mind, is this sort of a slow-moving until all of a sudden everyone sort of figures it out, or is this a national thing that we need? What's the right way to reset expectations?

Jean Eddy:

Well, one of the reasons why I wrote the book is that this isn't just about a school system or about digital initiatives or pockets of places across the country. This is about a conversation that needs to happen with legislators, with parents, with policymakers, with employers, because this is a problem that we all have to face. When I talk to parents about this, I oftentimes say, how often do you go to a school committee meeting? What is your PTO doing as far as being able to allow various things to happen within your school system and don't. And, you know, parents will say, well, they really don't care. They do care. If parents come in and talk about these kinds of things, it matters. I think, that there are superintendents across this country who have a vision and want to implement it, but they need the legislators around them and the policymakers to allow them to change the systems that they're in and give them the funding that they need. You know, I was really heartened when President Biden talked about the fact that he wants to institute apprenticeships across the country.

But something like that is not only going to take, it's wonderful for the President of the United States to say that, but as you know, Michael, every state has their own set of policies that you have to kind of work through. This is going to be a case of starting, yes, national, but then state by state, which is an enormous amount of work to do. But this is why I write a book. You write books. We talk. As, you know, anybody who listens to us, we talk. And I think through that, more and more people are adopting.

Balancing Passion and Practicality

Michael Horn:

No, that's. Well, I appreciate the vision of where this goes and how it goes. Let me just ask the last question that's sort of on my mind, which is one of those other yeah, but questions, which is, I'm just curious if there's a risk in your mind that for students, we might overindex on interests at the expense of some, you know, other things that maybe are, um, you know, you could imagine, like a bunch of young people, they get exposed to influencers. They want to be an influencer. There are only so many people that can make money as an influencer. How do we get that ikigai balance? Right. So it's not just my interests and yeah, I love it, but also I can get paid for it and it helps society.

Jean Eddy:

The way to do that, I believe, is through work-based learning. It's through opportunities in high school. And I would also say the connections to employers are going to be critical because what you can be paid for is enormous in this context. You know, I keep thinking about the number of times I've had conversations with my grandson when he was just a little guy, big basketball player, loved basketball and had visions of, “I'm going to be an NBA player.” Now, the odds of a kid becoming an NBA player are this high, but loved it and was passionate about it. But along the way, as he went through middle school and high school, now he has come to discover, of all the things that can happen around an NBA player, what that means, and what you can be paid for. So I would not be at all surprised if at one point in time, my grandson said, I'm going to go out and I'm going to do sports reporting or I'm going to go and be a trainer for a sports facility because he's been exposed to those kinds of things.

I think that is where we are going to try and close the disconnect between what you'd love to do and what you can be paid for. This is about exposure.

Michael Horn:

Love it. And the work-based learning and showing and getting people actually experienced in the workforce so that they understand that and build up their social capital, their awareness of what's out there beyond what their parents do and so forth is just tremendous. And it's a terrific book. Again, it's Crisis-Proofing Today's Learners: Reimagining Career Education to Prepare Kids for Tomorrow's World. And dare I say, it's really so that all individuals have this career education, not just some. And maybe it's really more about career education for all than college for all. Is that right, Jean?

Jean Eddy:

Very well said, Michael, as usual now.

Michael Horn:

Terrific. Well, look, thank you so much for the work you continue to do. Thanks for joining us in the Future of Education and keep up the good work. We'll keep an eye on it. For those who want to follow the stuff that ASA is doing, what's the best way for them to sort of stay plugged in?

Jean Eddy:

We're really easy. It's asa.org. Check it out. If you want to get more about the book, my book's also there as well.

Michael Horn:

Check it out. It's an important resource in resetting this narrative. Jean, thanks so much for joining us again.

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