E65: The Skills Revolution w/ Bill Coplin of Syracuse University

Join us as we explore the shift toward prioritizing practical skills over abstract knowledge. We discuss the increasing apathy and lack of hard work among students, and the breakdown of authority within the educational system. We advocate a skills revolution in education that teaches students not just what to think but how to think critically.

Links:
BillCoplin.com
Bill on LinkedIn
Note: As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn commissions on qualifying purchases.
The Path to Equity: Inclusion in the Kingdom of Liberal Arts
The Happy Professor: How to Teach Undergraduates and Feel Good About It
10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College

Transcript

Mr. Webb: 0:00

Are universities trying to create productive members of society or merely scholars? What are the skills employers are looking for? Are skills more important than scholarly pursuit? Welcome to the conservative classroom, where we're teaching the truth and preserving our values. I'm your host, M mr Webb, and I'm glad you're here.

Mr. Webb: 0:28

This podcast is a haven for conservative educators, parents and patriots like you, who believe in the importance of free speech, traditional values and education without indoctrination. Each week, we dive into issues that are plaguing our education system and keeping you up at night. In each episode, we offer common sense ideas to improve education in our classrooms and communities. You may feel like you're the last conservative educator or parent, but I want you to know that you are not alone. You to know that you are not alone. By the way, if you like what you hear today, please share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. Together, we can teach the truth and preserve our values.

Mr. Webb: 1:21

In today's episode, we're talking to Syracuse professor and author, bill Copeland, about what skills are not being taught but should be in K-12 and beyond. Now let's get started. Today, I'm excited to welcome a special guest to the conservative classroom, mr Bill Copeland. Bill is founder and professor of the highly successful undergraduate policy studies major at Syracuse University. Bill is here to talk to us about his advocacy for increasing the role of skills education that is not biased towards any political leaning, nor based on indoctrination. Bill, thank you for joining us.

Bill Collin: 2:03

Glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Mr. Webb: 2:06

To start, Bill, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

Bill Collin: 2:13

Yeah, my father had an eighth grade education and I went to college to get a job. And then the first class I had an English professor teaching me about Chaucer and there was quite a shock and I couldn't figure out what he was doing. And then it took me quite a while to realize that well, the professors want to make me a scholar and I want a job. And, by the way, being a scholar is not a really good way to get a job either. So that set me off. I was 16 years old and then I was at a small college. I transferred to Johns Hopkins where it was even worse, and I didn't want to know what I wanted to do. But I was interested in international relations. So I applied to the Foreign Service. I got past the written but not the oral, but I meanwhile went to graduate school at American University to study international relations, always with the eye I was getting a job in government or the CIA or something like that was so successful there. They had me teaching courses and so I became. I taught two or three courses every semester while I was doing my PhD, and so I loved teaching. And then, when I got my PhD and my first job was at Wayne State and I was very successful. Publishing, which I didn't even realize that was part of the job. I thought you taught college professors teach. Well, no, that's the second job. The first job is they do research. So I did a lot of research. It was very successful. They kept promoting me and then I decided, well, wait a minute, I'm not doing my teaching and I really want to help students deal with the world. And I went to the dean and I told him I wanted to teach their big freshman intro course and he said to me you can't do that. I said why? He says because you've got to keep publishing and that then I'm starting. I was starting to understand what was going on here, which was that that public publication was necessary. And so I got a job at Syracuse where I ran programs.

Bill Collin: 4:34

And then I, once I was a full professor, tenured. I completely dropped most research, except that may be funded by the federal government and I turned to developing this major. That was extremely successful and the major was based on skills. I wanted students to leave the major so they could get a job, a professional job. The major so they could get a job, a professional job, which means they had to write short sentences, not long sentences. They had to learn. At the time it was Lotus one, two, three, it's now Excel. They had to work. I had them doing research for people in the community so they would actually learn like something other than writing for scholars. And the major was so successful that it's now one of the largest interdisciplinary majors in the College of Arts and Science and also the Maxwell School, which is jointly connected um.

Bill Collin: 5:44

And then I um realize more and more that experience, that my, my mantra is skills through experience, um, and the way you get experience is you do volunteer work or you do something for the government or for business or whatever, and um you learn key concepts and practice the skills, sort of analytical skills, which is mainly statistics and quantitative analysis, and the students um saw this as compatible with their goal of going to college, which was to get a job. And I tried to change things. I did change things through the major, but of course the whole the universities and this isn't just Syracuse all of them, most of the faculty, want to create replicas of themselves, which is, other scholars, or make the students love learning for the sake of learning, all these kind of sort of general words, that sort of become a gentleman and a scholar, become a gentleman and a scholar. And so I then focused more. I read a book in 2004 called 10 Things Employers Wanted in a Learning College, which is still in print and it's been pretty successful.

Bill Collin: 7:15

And then I came up with a list of 38 skills and then I put it in the course and then I turned to working in the high schools and I tried to get the Syracuse City high schools to change, and about three years ago I started having my students go into the high schools and teaching students skills, and the most important initial skill was typing, because the schools don't teach typing anymore, and so we would have exercises where kids would practice typing.

Bill Collin: 7:53

What we did was we set up teams in the class and we had the teams compete with each other who could type the fastest, and this competition generated enthusiasm by the students, so they wanted to type faster and they did type faster. And then we had other things, mainly people skills. I'm a big advocate of Dale Carnegie how to win trends and influence people and we took his principles and we had students giving little talks on how they use their principle to get a friend to go to the movies with them or to get their parents to let them take the car out or whatever, and that is sort of an example of what I mean by skills.

Bill Collin: 8:40

You actually practice them, and that's where I am right now. I'm a big advocate of it.

Mr. Webb: 8:48

You said something that was very interesting. I probably won't word it exactly the way you did, but tell us more about how universities want to turn students into scholars instead of productive workers and skilled professionals productive workers and skilled professionals.

Bill Collin: 9:08

The problem is, most professors have PhDs. When they get their PhD, they become a scholar who totally believes that their worth is their knowledge. But the knowledge they want to transmit is way over the heads of the students. So there's this gap between where the students are and where the professor is, and this is why you have so many students dropping out and not being happy and saying their classes were irrelevant. And I didn't. It took me a long time to realize that was really the problem. And the reason the professors don't a lot of professors don't want to do something other than to make them love learning in their field is because they don't feel like they know anything else. So if they've never had a job outside of academia, how can they relate to the students? You follow what I'm saying. It's it's they're in a sense, parochial, very narrow. And then what's happened is the pressure on them over the last 20 or 30 years and with the rise in tuition costs, have made them well realize they have to do something. First they ignore it, but then they get bad student reviews. And student reviews are not the major thing that promotion and tenure are given on. They're given on their publication, but it's becoming more important. I call it's happening throughout K through 16 education where skills they'd be able to do something, the relevance of what they're doing is what the students want. And the problem is I just published a book which says the problem is liberal arts. The title of the book is the Pursuit of Equity Inclusion in the Kingdom of Liberal Arts, and what I'm saying is that the liberal arts which has permeated all the other parts of colleges because a lot of the professors in the professional schools are ex-liberal arts people the liberal arts is like educating elites who are going to love learning and be a gentleman and a scholar, and that's not what the students want. And it also hurts those students who aren't rich and educated, because they come to college like I came to college and totally clueless of what's going on, and so they drop out or they're not. You know they're not happy. There are things that are going on that counter that, which is students get involved in student government or they get involved in some giving food to poor people or some kind of community service thing, and they learn more skills doing that than they do in the coursework, the academic coursework. The academic coursework does not prepare them for the real world. It prepares them to be scholars.

Bill Collin: 12:48

Now I'm making these gross generalizations here, which is obviously variation, but the overall tender is and the thing is, what's also driving this is that liberal arts has dominated K through 12 education, because K through 12 education is a race to get in a high class college or to get into college for many, many, many schools. And because of that competition and the idea that, well, if I don't go to college, and it has to be a good college, I'll starve to death, okay, which is not true, you could be fine. But then what is taught in the college is what is taught in K through 12 is really pre-college. For example, why do I have to learn a calculus? Well, because in college you might need it in case you major in engineering and the engineering people will tell you well, I really don't have to take calculus, but we make them take it. Why do you make them take it? Well, because we always made them take it.

Bill Collin: 14:04

So the students are saying, saying, well, why is this relevant? And the answer is well, so you'll do better in college. Well, why is doing better in college relevant? Well, that question's never asked because it's just assumed that that's what you need, right, if you're going to feed yourself, so it it. So we've created a system where the students are maximizing their grade with the minimum amount of work, and this is true of the oh, let's say 60 percent of the students. The other 40 percent are so lost and so not doing well. That's why we have such a big dropout rate among students from disadvantaged areas. They're definitely more oriented to making money and not loving learning for its own sake, which is the mantra of liberal arts and of the colleges, and it's been permeated um throughout the K through 12.

Mr. Webb: 15:20

I'm not sure when the change occurred, but I know the push was, like you're saying, is get kids ready for college. Get kids ready for college. Need to go to college, need to go to college. Right, and my parents' generation the push was you need to work hard and learn a skill. Some of them went to college to do that. Many of them didn't. So I'm not sure when the change occurred, but I know through the 80s and 90s that was the push, like college, college, college, college, college.

Mr. Webb: 15:52

And now at least here locally. I'm in a rural school district in Kentucky and that has switched a little bit, where I guess we realize that not everybody's going to go to college. So there's a big push here locally for skills, which I'm very happy about and I just wish that, would you know. I know there are other places like that too, but nationally I think it's like what you're saying there yeah, no, I, I think.

Bill Collin: 16:28

I mean, I think it is changing across the country, um, and it's a slow change and there's other reasons why it's changing, um, which I which I basically say is the breakdown in authority. The students are working. Everybody complains that the students are not as good as they used to be, and I think it's they don't work hard, as hard enough. They don't work hard. Even in the top schools. They don't work hard.

Mr. Webb: 17:00

And I see that too as a middle school math teacher. I got started teaching late in life and I've only been teaching about 10 years. I've seen a difference in those 10 years. It seems like each group is a little more apathetic and a little less perseverant than the group before them.

Bill Collin: 17:22

on average, I think that's true. They don't work as hard. Some of them, I mean, they don't work as hard. Um and I, I trivies had to break down of authority, which which, uh, I mean it has been going on for quite a while. I mean, I think it really really took on speed when the Vietnam War protests, where the authority of the government was questioned. That led to parents of that generation to also be less emphasizing authority and there's pushback from both parents and students on the faculty.

Bill Collin: 18:17

I don't know if you have that problem, but the teachers I work with they're afraid of the parents problem. But the teachers I work with they're afraid of the parents. Um, I come in I, they teach my, my freshman course in high schools, in 50 high schools. So I'll come in there and the teacher will say to me give it to them, they're not working hard enough and let them have it. So of course I love that, so I let them have it. And I said do you know anything? I'm very, very assertive, and the teacher is sitting there in the background like applauding me, because the teacher feels like he can't do it.

Mr. Webb: 18:55

Yeah, you're saying what the teacher was thinking probably.

Bill Collin: 18:58

Exactly, and they because the feedback then and they get some blowback from what I said the teacher says well, he's the su professor. That's the way he does it and you know, we in our papers we take a point off for every typo and every mistake, and the kids aren't used to that. Um, so these a students will be getting a C on their first paper and you can imagine the result of that.

Mr. Webb: 19:27

Yeah, I'm sure they blame it on the professor.

Bill Collin: 19:30

Yeah, yeah. So the teachers blame it on me. Well, that's, that's his rubric. So, but? But the point is that I think, in addition to the breakdown of authority, I think it's because the education is pretty irrelevant, not useful, it's not about skills, it's about content. The content changes all the time. You've got the federal and the state governments. You had that common core thing which I think Kentucky was one of the first states that broke it. So what I'm saying is that it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Bill Collin: 20:20

If you want to prepare people to live and prosper in today's world, they need skills. They need skills. And we did a study of New York State standards, because it's called the ELA standards, and only 80% of my list of skills I have 10 skill sets, 38 skills which are, you know, they're good and they're not perfect. 80% of those skills were not mentioned, not mentioned in the standards. But what was mentioned was all the traditional topics going back to the Middle Ages, all the traditional topics going back to the Middle Ages. So, and then you get into arguments. Well, why do they have to read Shakespeare? Okay, if you want to do that, that's fine and there's some skill development in that. But the content has to give way to more skills. There has to be more skills. I mean, one of my examples is no student should graduate high school without being fairly good in Excel, use of Excel, microsoft Excel, because in the business world that's all they do. As I said on these Excel spreadsheets, if you get into the analytical part of it, I tell my students Excel is life, but it's not a as a beautiful thing to learn, not as a tool, and that's not. It's wrong. It's a tool. Make it a tool so it's useful. And that's all through the curriculum. So I think a lot of the problems with the curriculum is 50 years behind. It's all content and that's also driven like.

Bill Collin: 22:30

In New York State they give a Regents exam on global social studies. A lot of kids fail it. So what did they decide to do? Well, let's give it to them for the ninth and tenth grade and just instead of the tenth grade, let's do it twice to the students so they'll pass. Of course, they still don't pass any better, but now the students have to sit through two years of that. So the curriculum is a problem and I know the curriculum is not going to total change. But there's a way of teaching content by using skill development, by project-based learning and having. I have students go out and do studies. They learn statistics by doing a study for the Boys and Girls Club on how the kids behave. So there's a lot of things you could do, but what makes it difficult is that the curriculum is always changing. There are these tests that the teachers teach to and they don't feel like they have the time to do it. So that's why we are where we are and that's why I think skills and experience is so important.

Mr. Webb: 23:52

You've written several books. Your new book, you said, was the Path to Equity Inclusion in the Kingdom of Liberal Arts. The words equity and inclusion have been hijacked by the liberal left. Explain the title. That's not the equity and inclusion.

Bill Collin: 24:12

I hijacked it back from the left wing by doing it this way and the publisher and I got talking. I couldn't think of a title. My original title was Commoners in the Kingdom of Liberal Arts and my basic point is that the education system is directed at the elites, not at every student, and especially, I think the biggest inclusion thing is is class, which which the people, the DEI people, always mention class, but they don't really mean it, right?

Mr. Webb: 24:54

Right.

Bill Collin: 24:55

They just say it and I have a section in there where I talk about DEI. I think, yes, all students should. We should help all students, but my interpretation of what DEI is practice is, no, we should help those who are somehow unfortunate in some way because of their identity or whatever. So I believe I'm the real DEI person, not those who are using it to highlight the need to help certain identity groups.

Mr. Webb: 25:40

I also jotted something else down. You said the skills revolution. I think that makes a great title for a book. I don't know if you've written that book yet or not.

Bill Collin: 25:49

No, I haven't written that book.

Mr. Webb: 25:50

Yeah, that's a great title for a book.

Bill Collin: 25:52

You think so. I'm trying to write it as an article, but there's so much in it that's great.

Mr. Webb: 25:59

It just jumped out at me. I like, oh, that would be a great book title. Now was my description of the skills you're advocating for, um, when I introduced you at the beginning of the podcast, not biased towards any political leaning nor indoctrination, so is that description correct?

Bill Collin: 26:21

that's correct. It's teaching students how to think, not what to think.

Mr. Webb: 26:26

And why is that important? And why do you think there's actually two questions, I guess, in one. But why is that important and why has education been hijacked and got away from that?

Bill Collin: 26:41

Well, it's a complicated thing. I think it got away from it because of college and the liberal arts, where they teach you to think in abstractions. There's always these arguments and then you're learning. They say you're learning knowledge, but outside of the physical sciences you're not learning knowledge. There is no knowledge in the social area, socioeconomic area and humanities area. There's only speculation and this, and by treating it as knowledge they're making it so abstract that it then gets the elites arguing about it and then it looks like that's what's dominating everything. But actually you know, for example, critical race theory. Ok, I talk to my teachers and I say so what role is critical race theory playing in your school? And they said well, what's that? It's not even close. Now there are. We get newspapers, you know, saying there's a fight, a culture wars. You know the newspapers are promoting a culture war and I don't know how you feel. But in your school do you have arguments about the critical race theory stuff or do?

Mr. Webb: 28:08

you. I'm in a fairly conservative district but I've talked to a lot of teachers in a lot of different parts of the country and what they tell me is nobody calls it critical race theory, but the tenets of that are taught. So I equate that to teaching kids how to add, multiply, subtract, divide, but not calling it math. So that's what I'm getting from teachers in different parts of the country.

Bill Collin: 28:46

I mean, I think educators in general have always been reformists, intended to be reformists, but it's much worse now than it used to be. The liberal arts has exacerbated it, has blown it up, because they talk in abstractions all the time and they don't talk about how to help a student get ahead. You know, they talk about being an educated person. Well, as soon as you start saying an educated person, what are you talking about? Well, I say you're talking about you want people to be like yourself. That's why I want to emphasize skills. Why don't you help students do what they're there for? What are you doing? Now? I think there's. I was thinking, because you're conservative, I was thinking about this. So we're going to teach. Should we teach patriotism? Okay, so that's. It depends what you define as patriotism. So if you ask me, what should you teach that will hold this country together, you should teach people to pay their taxes, to live by the law, but to also provide feedback for change. That's what you should teach them. But but then I'm thinking well, maybe the people's what you should teach them. But then I'm thinking well, maybe people don't want to teach that because it's not very sexy or exciting. It's better to teach Like.

Bill Collin: 30:44

I think George Washington's decision to turn power over is like one of the biggest historical events and should be mentioned. I think that's okay, but should be mentioned as an example how the law superseded his own individual interest. Put it another way the term public interest. They never heard of that word. They don't even know what that is, and really all these discussions and fights about things is over.

Bill Collin: 31:13

What is the public interest? But they don't define it as. What is the public interest? They define it as right and wrong, making up for bad things that have happened in the past. So they get emotional about it and then certain teachers buy into that and then they want to make their kids think that way and they're violating the number one rule, which is teach them how to think, not what to think. In my view that's my position it's not what to think, it's how to think. How to think and how to have the skills to get along with people I like. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Teach for America. If you've heard of it, there was a school I can't remember the name of this the KIPP schools. Did you ever?

Mr. Webb: 32:03

hear of them? I don't think so. So this the KIPP schools Did you ever hear of them?

Bill Collin: 32:05

I don't think so. So that came out of Teach for America. The Teach for America teachers are very good, but they're also obviously on the left. So the KIPP school. Their saying used to be work hard, be nice, which I think is great. Yeah, work hard and be nice that's. That should be the outcome. That should be the mantra of all schools Work hard, be nice. So what happened was there was a revolution within their own um staff. That that was somehow racist because it said work hard that that was somehow racist because it said work hard.

Mr. Webb: 32:45

That's crazy to me it's crazy.

Bill Collin: 32:48

So I think if they paid attention to experience and skills, they wouldn't get into that stuff as much.

Mr. Webb: 33:01

I'm glad you brought it back around to skills because I wanted to. We won't have time to get into the specifics of the skills, but I wanted to ask you the 10 skill sets Are you advocating for their being taught at the college level, high school, middle school, elementary or all the above?

Bill Collin: 33:24

All the above and you know more. It's really about practice. They should be practiced throughout, but the colleges also need to do it and the colleges are getting taking that much more seriously than they used to because of the pushback they're getting and the decline in enrollment. High school very important in high school. I think that elementary school reading and writing and arithmetic has got to be taken care of. They have to be able to read, write and do arithmetic although some probably would argue they don't need to do arithmetic, but I think they do.

Mr. Webb: 34:08

Yeah, I think. As a math teacher, I think reading and math are the most important. But I always say reading is the most important because you can't learn science or social studies or anything if you can't read.

Bill Collin: 34:21

But there's a lot of things going on where, for example, ai, you ask an AI question and it tells you the answer, so you don't really need to read, you just have to read the answer. You know what I mean, as opposed to doing a lot of research and coming to the answer. And that's not going to go away, and that's another reason why skills are so important. That is not going away. This is going to get worse. I mean, I think it started with the Google thing and there's a lot of cheating and plagiarism in the colleges. I haven't run into it here in my, but I know it's there. So that's also pushing these skills things.

Mr. Webb: 35:20

And you brought up AI. I'm in the process of preparing for an episode on AI, in addition to teaching math, I'm uh, what's called in my district a digital learning coach, which basically is a teacher that helps other teachers learn technology that can help them be more effective teachers. So AI is a huge, huge topic, and so I'm planning on doing a whole episode on that. But if it's okay with you, bill, I'd like to have you back on to do an episode just going over the 10 skill sets. If you'd like to do that, I'd love to. Sure, I'd love to sure, I'd love to. But I want to run through it for the folks, uh skill set one taking responsibility. Then developing physical skills. Skill set three communicating verbally. Skill set four communicating and writing. Five is working directly with people. Six six influencing people. Seven gathering information. Eight using quantitative tools. Nine asking and answering the right questions. And 10, solving problems.

Mr. Webb: 36:30

And I can't wait for us to do an episode and get into each one of those, because there's so much to unpack there, but I usually end the episode with a key takeaway. So, bill, what's the one thing you want the listener to remember, if they don't remember anything else about this episode?

Bill Collin: 36:50

Skills are what students need more than anything else, and it can only be developed through experience, developed through experience. So the education system that gets kids to experience and practice skills is what we need. So skills and experience would be the biggest.

Mr. Webb: 37:17

And as we wrap things up, I sure appreciate you joining us on the conservative classroom. This is your time to plug or promote anything you want to, and I'll make sure and put a link to for them to buy your book through Amazon. I'm an Amazon affiliate so I can put a link out there in the show notes Mention if you have any social media or if you have a YouTube channel podcast.

Bill Collin: 37:47

BillCopelandcom is my website that explains all those things and talks about all my books. The Path to Equity Inclusion in the Kingdom of Liberal Arts is my latest book. I also have a book called the Happy Professor which says sort of, teach this way and you'll be happy. So I give all the tips I use in my classes and other people who've worked with me have used. And then I have a book called 10 Things Employees Want to Learn in College, which just goes, talks about these skills, the 10 skill sets I just went through.

Mr. Webb: 38:32

I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on the conservative classroom. It's been a pleasure on my end and I know our listeners appreciate your insights on the skills revolution and I know our listeners appreciate your insights on the skills revolution.

Bill Collin: 38:46

Okay Well, thank you very much, Joey. I really appreciated your comments on some of the things you said. That was very good.

Mr. Webb: 38:52

Thank you. Yeah, just wait till we get into the 10 skills I've got so many.

Bill Collin: 38:57

Okay, well, you let me know when you want, you can just email me directly about setting the next one up.

Mr. Webb: 39:03

Thank you, appreciate it. Okay, thank you. That's it for today's episode of T the Conservative Classroom. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. If you liked what you heard, please don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Most importantly, share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. You can also connect with us on social media and share your thoughts on today's topic. Give feedback on the podcast or suggest a topic by sending me an email at T heConservativeClassroom@ gmail. com. We'd love to hear from you. If you feel that education without indoctrination and teaching the truth is important to preserve traditional values, then support my efforts to keep T the Conservative Classroom running. I'm a full-time teacher and dad and part-time podcaster. I invest a lot of hours and my own hard-earned money each week to bring you quality content, but I need your help. Check out the links in the show notes and on the website to support the podcast with one-time or recurring monthly donations. Every little bit helps. You can also visit our merch store to get your own clothing, coffee mugs, stickers, backpacks, book bags and more with the conservative classroom logo or one of our many other conservative slogans such as age appropriate does not equal banning books, defund the teachers unions, keep politics out of the classroom and more. If you want to support common sense and education without pushing your politics, check out our products with the red schoolhouse logo on it. We know it's hard to be openly conservative in some school districts, but your silent show of support may help you find other conservatives in your community and it lets you know that you're doing the right thing. Until next time, this is, M mr Webb, reminding you that you are not alone. See you next time on T the Conservative Classroom. T teaching the truth. P preserving our values.