Page 224 - The Drucker Lectures

27

From Teaching to Learning

1999

s you know, there is an enormous amount of talk about
Aschools. I started counting, and I ended up with about 40
different approaches all over this country—and not just all over
this country, all over the developed world—aimed at restoring
the school of yesterday. And I’m all for it. Let me say the school
of yesterday had one enormous advantage. Yes, the children did
learn basic skills. But perhaps equally important, they acquired
self-confidence. In the school of today, or a very large number of
the schools of today, children lose self-confidence, and that’s the
greatest barrier to learning.
At the same time, we know that the school of tomorrow will
not just be a restored version of yesterday’s school. We know that
it will have to be a very different school. And we know why, and
we know how.
The basic reason is not technology. And it is not educational
theory. The basic reason is the change in demographics. When
I was born, there was no country in which more than three out
of four people in the work force did not work with their hands.
They worked with their hands as farmers, as domestic servants,
as store clerks, in small shops, in factories. And today in this
country, only two out of every ten people still work with their
hands, and the percentage is going down. And of the eight out

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