I used to believe this but now I think the opposite. Technology obviates the needs to learn many skills. Some 18th century skills I no longer need to know: se

I used to believe this but now I think the opposite. Technology obviates the needs to learn many skills. Some 18th century skills I no longer need to know: sewing, soap making, farming, canning, penmanship, spelling, using a slide rule, long division. I work in software, but I no longer have to learn assembly or C. I don't actually need to learn anything more than my dad did, because I stand on his shoulders. I just learn different things. In fact, the definition of technological process is when a process becomes so good you can use it as an abstraction layer to build the next process on top of it. You can also took at the most technically skilled people from the 18th century - architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers. Their jobs were just as complex as the modern equivalents. Yet probably half of them entered their profession with no education beyond grade school. They learned on the job. Schooling might not be the best means to train them, but until an viable alternative is implemented, we still need those extra years. Schooling does not provide any training at all for 95% of the jobs in the market. Most people learn everything on the job.