The last chapter on Education 1-2-3 discussed the changing nature of the workplace, and the role of technology in it. It describes an American economy that has shifted quickly from manufacturing to information, from making things to moving ideas. And warned the next generation not to prepare themselves for work in a factory that no longer exists.

But we still have factories, and they employ millions of workers. We don't make many refrigerators or computers or televisions any more; these are manufactured for the most part overseas. But we still make such high-tech articles as aircraft and automobiles. And low-tech items such as boats. And cheese. Let's visit two plants that manufacture the last two items, to see the kinds of jobs and the kinds of technologies at work. And to consider the implications for how we use technology in school.

Boats

The factory in Warren, Rhode Island has been making boats for more than 50 years. In the middle of the sprawling factory floor are hulls in various stages of assembly, some empty shells, others ready to roll out the door to the launch ramp. From a small sailboat that Stuart Little would find familiar, to larger cruisers being built for the US Navy, the array represented the range of current boat production.

A boat is assembled from hundreds of parts, each manufactured in one of the shops that surround the main factory floor. One shop makes the hull, another the deck, others construct the floors, walls, and teak trim pieces. All are highly automated. What struck me was the lack of people, and the lack of noise. No banging, no yelling, no muscle work. The few workers in the plant wore blue button-down shirts and ID tags. Their hands rested on computer keyboards more than on wrenches or screwdrivers. The soft hum of machinery and exhaust fans seemed to quiet the place down.

Today's boat is a precision instrument, crafted for speed, strength, durability, and light weight. Its parts are created not by people at lathes but by computer-controlled robots. Here's how the robots work.

Where's the worker? He's standing several feet away, safely monitoring the action. His hands are folded, his shirt spotless, his mind focused how how he might speed up or improve the manufacturing process.

What skills does he need to succeed at this work? Will he learn them at your school?

Cheese

We import very little cheese from China. It's one of the things that we still make at home. At the Cabot Farmer's Cooperative factory in the hills of rural Vermont, millions of pounds of cheddar go out the door each year aboard trucks bound for every state in the union. At the other end of the plant, huge pipes funnel in millions of gallons of milk from New England cows. In between we can see the cheese-making process, a natural organic transformation that we have employed for thousands of years: expose the milk to the air, add a little acid, watch the temperature, and wait for the curds to form. Then compress the solids, let it age, and slice it onto your sandwich.

On the factory floor, you'd expect to see a team of wrinkled codgers in plaid shirts and overalls stirring the pots, turning the valves, and tasting the samples. But they were nowhere to be found. Instead, I saw scientists in white lab coats armed with test tubes and computers.

While she monitors the process in the lab, the machines that make the cheese are run by computers.

Not too many jobs in this factory for unskilled workers, or for those limited to carrying out routine tasks. The routine tasks are done by the machines. The workers are there to program the machines, monitor them with precision, solve problems when they go wrong, and design new machines that make the cheese better. Are the students at your school learning what they need to carry out thee kinds of tasks?

The skills we need

Boats and cheese are real, substantive physical entities that are still manufactured by Americans. They are neither digital, informational, nor service products. They are part of the old economy. But today they are made in new ways that call for a set of skills that were not so important in the old economy. These include problem-solving; numerical analysis; engineering design; applied chemistry; statistics; and close observation. And these are the lowest-level workers in the system; their supervisors must possess all these and more.

If basic products like boats and cheese require this level of technical skill and intellectual understanding, imagine what is required to manufacture more complex items. The expectations and standards of yesterday will not suffice for the world our students will move into.