I recently finished the audiobook version of Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. This book is an interesting contrast to much of the literature on productivity, acting as a counterpoint to Getting Things Done, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and other treasured productivity books. I enjoyed the book; Burkeman’s humor mixed with his strong background in philosophy make for an interesting and entertaining read. The premise of the book is that we each have about four thousand weeks to live, and there is no way we can accomplish everything we want to get done in that time. We must figure out how to make the best use of our time, rather than trying to cram in every possible accomplishment.

Something that struck me related to education is Burkeman’s discussion of how spending our time with a future-orientation means we are not living in the present. He bemoans the nonstop focus on productivity, where we have to constantly prepare for something in the future; where every activity, sometimes even our hobbies, needs to be productive or profitable in some way.

He brings this up in relation to education at one point, pointing out that the education system is constantly training students for the next stage. Kindergarten students are being prepared for elementary school, elementary students for junior high, high school students for college, college students for the workforce, and so on. His thesis is that we are training young people to have this future orientation, rather than letting them just be students and children.

In my role at my school district, I coordinate career education for junior high and high school students. Much of our focus is on the future of our students: career pathway programs to prepare students for their careers, dual enrollment classes to help students start earning early credit for college, internships, and more. We want to develop students’ 21st Century Skills, technical skills, each student’s sense of purpose, and more to prepare them for life. All of these efforts may lead students to develop the future-orientation Burkeman writes about in his book.

How can we prepare students for their futures while allowing them to enjoy their childhood? I am thankful that our district has trained many of our teachers in embedding mindfulness into the classroom, which can help ground students (and the teachers and staff who support them) in the present moment. If in our career education programs we can balance allowing students to explore potential careers while letting them be teenagers, we may be able to avoid causing undue stress or creating the future-orientation Burkeman discusses.

Burkeman reminds us that we do not want to spend our lives planning for the future or regretting the past. Instead, we should live in and enjoy the present. This leaves educators with the question: how can we help students be present for their childhood, yet still prepare them for their future?

Over the last ten years, my school district, the Anaheim Union High School District, has grown their career mentoring program, called AIME, in which we partner with local businesses, government agencies, and non-profits to provide career mentoring and internships to our students. We have had over 100 businesses participate in these efforts, and they enjoy working with our students and are regularly impressed with the caliber of the young people who will make up the workforce of tomorrow. Throughout our county there are several organizations working towards a similar mission: The CEO Leadership Alliance of Orange County, Vital Link, Orange County United Way, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and others. The Disneyland Resort has also made generous donations to AIME and other programs in the community to support workforce development.

While these efforts have made great progress, the number of students who participate in these work-based learning efforts is slim in comparison to the overall student population. In addition, the business community and the educational system often remain siloed, and work-based learning programs seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Educational entities, including the K12 system, community college, and universities, have their own standards, operating procedures, unions, and government requirements, making it challenging to collaborate. Legal requirements, risk management, and the bureaucracy of creating board-approved agreements can slow down the process of partnering, which leads to resistance in moving these relationships forward. All of this means slower progress towards meeting the needs of our students as well as the workforce needs of our local regions.

There are several promising practices that may lead us towards a stronger partnership with the business world and greater student participation in work-based learning. For example, our school district has implemented the Career Preparedness Systems Framework (CPSF) to align our educational goals with workforce readiness. This framework focuses our efforts around three main drivers: Youth Voice and Purpose, Technical Skills, and 21st Century Skills. By addressing 21st Century Skills in every classroom (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and character) we are providing skills that we know will be important regardless of a student’s career choice. Our focus on the second driver, technical skills, not only ensures that students will have relevant skills they can cite on their resumes once they finish their education, it also helps teachers identify the skills in their curriculum that will lead to job-readiness and brings relevance to classroom learning. Finally, by allowing Youth Voice and Purpose to guide each student’s educational journey, we are avoiding tracking students towards particular pathways based on our perceptions of those students, and we are empowering students to become part of their communities to influence positive change. Our focus on career readiness does not just take place in Career Technical Education pathways, rather it is implemented across the curriculum.

We are in the early stages of implementing the CPSF, but believe it will be a positive step towards preparing our future workforce for success. Our business partners agree that drivers such as the 5 Cs are well worth focusing on, as they will help students succeed in any industry. In addition, UC Irvine has reported that our students who attend their university have higher average GPAs when compared with students from other districts, and are more likely to continue their education beyond the first year of college. We believe that our focus on transferrable career skills has helped students prepare for success in both their college and career pursuits.

Another promising example of successful partnerships between education and industry is that of apprenticeships. Whereas traditional apprenticeships were associated with building, manufacturing, and other trades, apprenticeships are now being implemented in high-tech fields, such as computer science and biotechnology. In an apprenticeship, the employer and educators agree on the skills that apprentices will learn, and the apprentice works for a wage while receiving instruction aligned with the apprentice’s experience in the workplace. If the student meets the standards of the apprenticeship, they are hired to work for the company. Our district, as well as the Orange County Department of Education, is working on implementing apprenticeships at the high school level.

It is time for education and industry to become true partners in preparing our future workforce. While CTE educators have long been working towards these partnerships, it is time to orient our entire educational system towards career and life readiness. I applaud the efforts of our local nonprofits and corporate partners as we work toward a common vision of workforce readiness. Considering that our students will spend most of their lives working in their careers, let’s focus on career preparedness as the end goal and let that drive our school and district improvement efforts to guide students towards purposeful, fulfilling lives.