Setting Priorities
Nationally we seem to have a wrestling match about how much to commit to what. If we speak about investing in infrastructure or health care there is an accusation of socialism. In fact we have been putting off facing something that should be inevitable and investing for the people of our country.
Focus on One Issue
Of special interest to me is the issue of jobs as we move faster and faster into a changing future. I learned a great deal many decades ago and am deeply concerned about how we are not serving our most vulnerable people. And that issue is the changing jobs picture.
An Unexpected Job Function
When I went to work in Baltimore’s inner city as a psychologist I thought that I was to deliver mental health services. I wasn’t alone in being naive. As I’ve said before, poverty is the biggest enemy of mental health as it fuels anxiety and depression. In each of our service centers there was a vocational rehabilitation counselor and they were thrilled to learn they had a psychologist on staff who could evaluate the skills of people for whom they were seeking new employment or even some employment at last.
Many of these people were women who had no previous job experience as they struggled alone at home to feed and guide their children. What I saw was eye opening. Of course when they came for service I would interview them and when jobs were needed I would do a further evaluation to aid their counselor.
We Missed it
At a broader level there soon was even greater concern. To be blunt, when we began to see things like the decline of the coal industry and the ramping up of technology we should have begun research. It is commonly assumed that coal miners could only dig coal. Not true. There are wide varieties of talents available in all job markets and it is just a matter of identifying jobs which need filling and then studying the skill sets in the population at large.
One of the things that I came to see violated what I had been taught about intelligence testing. The most common test was divided into two parts of Verbal and Performance. Verbal is what we ordinarily assume such as vocabulary and related skills. Performance had a broader range and was less well understood.
Discrepancies
Generally it is expected that the Verbal and Performance were expected to fall at a similar level. But when the Verbal fell lower it was viewed as a learning disability. I learned that turning it around was more revealing. Seeing it as a higher Performance level often revealed a special talent which was useful in technology type jobs. The type of jobs which would become available.
A View to the Future
For decades I worked with vocation rehabilitation people and gained a significant perspective. At least twenty years ago, when we began to see coming changes, we should have focused and begun research. We did nothing useful. The left behinds are a special focus. The ones losing jobs when they are in their 50s and 60s will be hard to serve but we can do a great deal for the younger ones and not just serve them but serve our society.
I’ll leave it there for now. It gets complex and lengthy but I think I’ve conveyed the fundamental idea. Things are not as hopeless as they seem and there can be a much brighter future for many who see no light down their road. But we have to begin to focus on that light now.
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Don’t Miss My Developing Gaia’s Majesty Trilogy
I refer to it as a work of magical realism. It is a series with a strong mythological element and a real world setting in this time when women are being empowered at last. It is a time of wonder and awakening for all of humankind.
Gaia’s Majesty-Mission Called: Women in Power – Book 1
Avery had dedicated her life to work for the future of third world women. Her life was enhanced when she met the man who became the love of her life. They could not know that they shared a destiny and that a mission set long ago by our Earth Goddess was to be revealed before
them.
Available Now in Kindle and Paperback on Amazon
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Gaia’s Majesty-Challenge: The Chosen Rise – Book 2
(Available now in Pre-Order and goes on sale April 29 on Amazon)
These people, called Tethyans, live in cities in the sea but can morph into fully human form and come to land to form families. They join with the warrior women called the Andromeda to fight against the forces working to impair the future of humankind. Avery has found her birth name of Chantia and she and Beck find there is soon to be a child of seeming great import just as the world falls into terrible strife with millions already dead.
Available Now in Kindle and Paperback on Amazon