{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 7?"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"color":"#002060","link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=232"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":"Two Objections [2 of 2]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nHere is a second objection:\n \nThe dominant trend in business is toward giant corporations. Within them relations are direct, hierarchical, and bureaucratic. Directions flow from the top down. There is minute specialization of tasks. The entire task is accomplished by orchestrating the diverse specialized contributions. Very few specialists are in a position to judge the contributions of other specialists, or to judge the productive process as a whole. What we need are specialists who know their own specialty well, not generalists who judge this process as a whole."},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nMy argument is not an argument against specialization but rather an argument for how to teach specialized skills. It is an argument in favor of specialists with the skills of generalists. There are two different modes of specialization. A narrowing and a broadening one. Most tools nowadays have a narrow specialized function. They are increasingly designed to serve a specific purpose in a specific process. But, as such, they are quickly rendered obsolete. We cannot afford vocational education or training that renders workers obsolete. Precisely because information and technology are quickly being replaced and transformed, we need workers who can adapt to profound changes.\n \nMindless, routine jobs are quickly being automated. The jobs that remain require increasing ability to adapt, to abandon old and adopt new ways. The same kinds of general critical thinking skills and abilities required for the global decisions of a citizen and consumer are required by specialists to adapt to new information, new technologies, and new procedures. This has been attested to in the call for new emphasis on critical thinking skills in vocational and professional education by the Educational Commission of the States, The National Academy of Sciences, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. As one business leader put it, we do not need “a steady supply of drones moving in a huge beehive.” What we do need he suggested with the following example:\n \nMy company took a contract to extract beryllium from a mine in Arizona. I called in several consulting engineers and asked, “Can you furnish a chemical or electrolytic process that can be used at the mine site to refine directly from the ore?” Back came a report saying that I was asking for the impossible – a search of the computer tapes had indicated that no such process existed. I paid the engineers for their report. Then I hired a student from Stanford University who was home for the summer. He was majoring in Latin American history with a minor in philosophy. I gave him an airplane ticket and a credit card and told him, “Go to Denver and research the Bureau of Mines archives and locate a chemical process for the recovery of beryllium.” He left on Monday. I forgot to tell him that I was sending him for the impossible. He came back on Friday. He handed me a pack of notes and booklets and said, “Here is the process. It was developed 33 years ago at a government research station at Rolla, Mo.” He then continued, “And here also are other processes for the recovery of mica, strontium, columbium and yttrium, which also exist as residual ores that contain beryllium.” After one week of research, he was making sounds like a metallurgical expert."},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nWhereas the specialists’ preconceptions, intellectual arrogance, and algorithmic thought prevented them from solving the problem, the student’s open mind and general skills enabled him to do so. It is clear that the age of changing specializations needs specialists skilled in the art of changing their specialty, not specialists who, like tools and machines, become obsolete. Those corporations, giant or otherwise, who recognize this will thrive. Those who seek drones with specialties will continually be in trouble and, eventually, I would guess, out of business.\n"}]}