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I took a few minutes
the other night to read “And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?” by Jean
Fritz. When I started flipping through
this forty-five page book written for elementary school students, I didn’t
think I’d learn anything I didn’t know before, but I was wrong. I knew that Paul Revere was by trade a
silversmith. What I did not know was
that in his ever-present need to provide for his large family, Revere was also
at various points in his life a bell ringer, engraver, dentist and maker of
false teeth. During the Revolution, not
only did he take part in the Boston Tea Party and go on his famous midnight
ride, but he was also a messenger for the Committee of Safety, lieutenant
colonel in the Massachusetts militia, and commander of the fort at Castle
Island. He also printed paper money for
Massachusetts, helped set up a powder mill, and learned how to make brass and
iron cannon. After the war Revere went
back to his silver work, but he also opened a hardware store, set up a foundry
where he made a variety of items from pumps and cogs to stoves and church
bells. He also learned how to roll sheet
copper and made copper sheathing for ships and roofs. During his 83 years, Paul Revere did a
remarkable number of things. It seemed
that by sheer force of will he was able to make a new opportunities for himself
at every turn.
And he was by no
means the only man of his time that pursued a variety of careers. In the course of our study of Early American
History this year, we have had the opportunity to read about men like Benjamin
Franklin, Eli Whitney and Robert Fulton (though I should point out that Whitney
and Fulton came after the Revolution, but they are good examples nonetheless). All of these men applied their keen minds to
a variety of pursuits. They had a great
ability to adapt to the great changes taking place in America and to make
something out of the new opportunities presented.
After I read through
the book about Paul Revere, I started thinking about how different the expectations
for a modern career path are. For the
most part we send our students off to college where they quickly select a major
and then narrow their focus within that major to an even smaller field of
expertise. For the most part, our
students are not encouraged to diversify their studies during high school and
college. We send them off to college and
the work world trained to do one specific job.
I’m not saying this
is necessarily a bad thing. If I ever have
a brain tumor, I’d certainly like a surgeon who has made neurosurgery his
specialty!
But for most of us,
I think more diversity would be a good thing.
During the recent recession we saw many young people either just
emerging from college or only a few years out of college who were unable to
find jobs in their field of study. They
were often forced to take jobs requiring skills well below their level of
training. Or in some cases they
discovered that they had not specialized enough
to be eligible for certain positions and that more schooling would be
required to secure a job.
It has been a long
time since the days of “company men” – men or, to a lesser degree, women who
worked at the same company from college to retirement ; sometimes working for
the same company for thirty or forty years.
The average tenure these days is 4.4 years according to Forbes. This means that the average person could hold
fifteen or more different jobs during his or her lifetime. It seems unlikely that each job will require
the exact same skill set.
I wonder if we are
going back to the days of Paul Revere, when the ability to diversify one’s
business pursuits will be the key to steady employment?
As our children
approach high school, and especially as we are guiding them into college and
beyond, to keep this concept of diversity in mind. If we train our students to be adaptable and
to look for ways to create their own opportunities – as Paul Revere did – we
will help set them up for a more promising future in an increasingly uncertain
business environment.
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