Tag Archive of “producer”
I am a producer. I like to produce things, whether that means businesses, websites, or blogs.
For the most part, education fails to thoughtfully educate producers. Over the centuries, schools have gotten very good at teaching consumers. We emphasize reading and math, so consumers can consume more.
There is nothing wrong with this. Many people are consumers, and everyone needs the skills to be one. However, a growing tide of people are producers — people who feel the unquenchable need to make. The education system fails to even recognize this trend, let alone teach to it.
From a purely business perspective, this is dangerous. Producers are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of the GDP, and giving producers better education will help to increase that. But it’s also important from a human perspective — education should match the personality of the student.
A good start would be to help students identify whether they are a producer or consumer. This is as easy as asking a simple question:
Some people are consumers by nature; they consume vast quantities of knowledge purely for learning’s sake. Others are producers; they consume knowledge with the intent of one day acting on the knowledge and producing something, be it a book, a song, a blog, a startup, etc… Neither is better than the other.
The key is to answer one question: which are you?
Beyond that, schools can give education appropriate to each type of student. For the most part, we are a mix of both producers and consumers; teaching consumption and production will help everyone.
The one additional component which producers absolutely need more of in their education is practice. Whenever possible, there should be time to practice (authentically) producing businesses, books, or music. Though practice doesn’t make you perfect, it does make you a whole lot better of a producer.
Schools need to recognize and identify producers, so a proper education can be given to them.
How do you teach producers?
Article found via Michael Mistretta