Carolyn Eselgroth
Partner at Barrett, Easterday, Cunningham & Eselgroth LLP
I provide legal services to farmers, agribusinesses and non-profit associations. I’d be happy to connect with teachers and their classrooms by providing background info for a lesson, doing a classroom visit, and possibly providing job shadowing or internship opportunities.
What is the benefit of collaboration between industry and education?
The folks working in the industry today can help teachers convey the amazing opportunities their students will have in building the future. I recently heard a futurist, Gerd Leonhard, predict that many more of the routine tasks we do today will soon be done even more efficiently by ever-powerful computers. We are at the point where we cannot beat machine logic, logistics, and math. We cannot keep speeding up like computers. But, Leonhard says, we can provide the type of understanding and human context that puts data into perspective and allows us to use data for good. The focus for the future is how to tap the human potential for problem solving, conflict resolution, and policy-making. Our creativity becomes our strength. I am hopeful industry’s needs for creativity, problem-solving and positive human interaction can help educators convince legislators that we need to take education beyond teaching for the next test. Our fast-changing and smaller world requires more of us. Great teachers already use methods that develop creative problem-solving and collaboration. We in industry need to support these teachers in their efforts.
What do teachers and students need to know about your industry?
Agriculture literally provides a world of opportunity. Since we all need to eat, we will always have an agricultural industry. Whether its logistics, transportation, new product development, production research, food safety, engineering, finance, data management, communications, law, accounting and tax, business and estate planning, risk management, meteorology, food and environmental policy, and more – it’s all part of agriculture. Agriculture is often at the cutting edge of scientific development and adoption of technology. The industry provides many ways for young people to collaborate in feeding all the people in the world.
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