Transcriber: Translate TED Reviewer: Alessandra Tadiotto
Are you ready to write off an entire generation?
Aren't we stuck in an educational system
that doesn't get what we need and what we want?
We're listening to some awesome ideas today.
But, are those ideas too little too late?
I heard a student say last year,
"Schools teach me what I need to know, not how to think."
Is she right?
As an employer, I am a customer of this system
and like you, I'm stuck.
And what makes it worse
I contribute to its disfunction.
You see, everyday we sift through thousands
of resumés to find the right talent
so that my company can stay competitive and innovate.
We go through criteria and put in search keys.
We look for experience, academic achievement.
I hire two candidates, both of them from the same school,
same degree, same grade point average.
One turns out to be a wonderful employee.
The other can't figure out the job, and eventually leaves.
Why is that?
So, I decided to increase the requirements.
Instead of a bachelor, I'm going to ask for a master
and instead of ten years experience
I'm going to ask for 15 years experience.
I share my dilemma with universities and colleges
all across the country, and the academic response is
let's design calculus seven
and require all engineers to take that course.
(Laughter)
Wow, what we are doing here is
we're creating academic inflation.
Sir Ken Robinson talks about that in his TEDTalk.
Frankly, we're shooting in the dark
and we're not getting the results that we need.
Do you realize that 90% of the jobs require math skills
at a 6th grade level?
Shouldn't I rethink how I qualify my talent?
Two years ago, we started an extraordinary project.
A work force pilot, the goal was simple:
how do I place talent with no degree, no experience
successfully to jobs?
How would I qualify such talent?
After some indepth research
and experimentation, we decided to use
cognitive skills assessments.
Cognitive skills, in plain English,
is the ability to figure things out.
What we discovered is that
individuals with no degrees scored just as high
as individuals with degrees.
We also found that schools don't teach cognitive skills.
Somehow we think it's innate, we learn this at home.
We also know that
the length of education just marginally improves
your cognitive skills over time.
As an employer, those cognitive skills assessments
give me five times more accurate results,
I can predict five times better whether an employee
is going to perform in a job or not.
It's not a new idea; after World War II, a lot of veterans
were assessed with these methods and placed
successfully into jobs and academic tracks.
The process is really simple, first you identify the job
you evaluate the job to the cognitive areas
and the levels needed.
Second, you assess the talent and you make the match,
and third, which I think is the best news,
is the fact that you can learn these skills
and you can teach these skills to students and the workforce.
This opens up a whole new set of possibilities
for schools and employers alike.
A recent case study, a company, a high tech company
decided to improve their technical sales capabilities
across the country.
What they did, which is the normal track,
is they placed their best engineers
in technical sales supports jobs across the country.
Boy, what a disaster that was.
(Laughter)
These engineers didn't listen to the customers
they couldn't come up with ideas that met the customers' needs.
And furthermore, the sales people were tired of working with them.
On the flip side,
listening and observation skills are found to a very high level
in child care workers across the country.
So a gutsy move, the company hired child care workers
in major metro areas, paired them up with the engineers,
taught them the technology
and let them go after it, and guess what?
The results were fabulous!
Their sales increased and guess what, the sales people were even happy
working with these employees.
(Laughter)
So what does that lead me to?
I believe we do not have to write off an entire generation.
I believe that we need to incorporate cognitive skills assessments
and development in schools and workforce alike,
in universities as well.
I would like to invite you this year
to start a whole new and innovative type of marketplace
that incorporates these kinds of ideas.
The educational ideas that you are hearing about today,
many of them, like project based learning,
or inquiry facilitative methods
are really about teaching our kids cognitive skills.
I think the ideas are right and we need to act now.
(Applause)