“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
This is a quote I like a lot.
It’s attributed to Alvin Toffler from his 1970 book “Future Shock.”
It strikes me that many people being left behind today are suffering from this very problem.
As an industry pivots, a sector of the economy transforms, and technology changes the nature of work, some people make great efforts to keep pace and evolve, while others watch their economic value atrophy and their ability to leverage skill and time diminish.
As a result, many become increasingly angry with a world they no longer recognize and cannot compete in.
Being a lifelong learner—something teachers have always hoped for their students—is essential to remaining viable and productive in a rapidly changing world.
Researchers at MIT, for example, found that 60% of the jobs existing in 1940 no longer exist today.
Similarly, Dell Technologies predicts that 85% of the jobs in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.
If you’re not constantly learning, evolving, and reinventing, your value in the job market diminishes almost by the minute. Whether you’re developing skills in a new sector or refining and expanding your skills in your current field, stagnation is economic death.
Thirty years before the dawn of the new millennium — decades before the age of the internet and the digitization of the world—Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
That was one prescient guy.
