Significant Career Lesson From a Senior Consultant at Scoot Education
Adan, a Senior Consultant at Scoot Education, identifies education as a "system that has ultimately remained unchanged over the last 200 years," highlighting the crucial need to work *within* the system to effect meaningful change, investing in students, families, and staff to create "a society that has options." The approach emphasizes gradual, systemic improvements rather than immediate overhauls.
Education Systems, Systemic Change, Career Options, Educational Reform, Student Advocacy
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Adan Juarez Cordova
Senior Consultant
Scoot Education
University of Pennsylvania
N/A
Economics, Philosophy
Education
Consulting
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Immigrant, Worked 20+ Hours in School, LGBTQ, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Education is a system that has remained unchanged for 200 years, originally designed to produce blue-collar workers.
2. To change the education system, one must work within it, making slow, incremental changes rather than seeking immediate, radical change.
3. The goal of education is to provide students with options for their future, preventing them from falling into careers due to a lack of alternatives.
Transcript
What is one lesson that you have learned that has proven to be really significant in your career?
Education is a system that has fundamentally remained unchanged over the last 200 years. It's doing exactly what it was built to do, which was originally to provide an assembly line of blue-collar workers.
If that's the path a student is going to follow, that's perfectly fine, as long as that is the path the child is choosing. I've always told my students, "I don't care what you decide to do with your future, but I just want you to have options to do that." I don't want you to fall into something because you feel like you had no other options.
That is the only reason I want you to get an education: because I want you to have options. The biggest thing I've learned that's proven really significant is that education is a system that we must uphold in order to simultaneously change it.
This is hard to wrap your head around because if you're not working with the system, you can't change the system. It's counterintuitive to everything we know about what change means. You can't flip the switch right away.
You need to invest your students, their families, your staff, and your teams into making changes. They will happen slowly but surely. When you do that, you're doing what education should hopefully be doing in the future: creating a society that has options. I love it. Thank you so much, Adan. You got it.