Soccer Academies and Job Distortions

Imagine a country where children had to study soccer history and soccer theory until they turned 18, with no playing allowed before then. At 18, the best students would be selected and finally allowed to start practical training and play in actual games.

Two things to note.

First, the education system would appear to work. I know it’s stupid and doesn’t work, and you know that it’s stupid and doesn’t work. But if you and I lived in that world, we would probably think it works. Because of the “no playing before 18” rule, there would be little counterfactual. There would be no “bad at studying, good at soccer” kids. So it would look like studying was necessary to play soccer well.

This is intuitive when it comes to soccer. But what about other jobs? For how many jobs does the current education system look like it works simply because we lack the counterfactual: what would happen if people could practice earlier, instead of being forced to delay practice until they finish their studies, or until the last year of them?

Of course, the idea is not to eliminate theoretical education, which has a purpose, but to alternate it with practice as soon as possible, instead of waiting until one is already an adult.

Second, imagine how different soccer would look if only people who were good at soccer theory could get to practice it. It would probably become a slower sport, less athletic and more technical. Many would say it became a worse sport.

Again, this is intuitive when it comes to soccer. But what about other jobs? For how many jobs is what we currently see the distorted, hyper-technical version that results from limiting the downstream players to those willing to stomach 16+ years of classroom theory?

Take teaching. We mostly see teachers who survived the school version of teaching: years of sitting in classrooms, studying subjects, passing exams, and only later practicing the actual craft of managing attention, explaining things clearly, reading a room, handling disruption, and adjusting in real time. There are probably people who would be mediocre at the school version of teaching but excellent at the actual job. Yet, because this group is filtered out early, we rarely see the counterfactual. So the theory-heavy system looks more necessary than it is. And, over time, teaching itself gets shaped by the people who make it through: more theory-tolerant, more credential-oriented, perhaps more comfortable with abstraction than with the practical skill of getting thirty different students to actually learn something.

It’s important to remember that the current system isn’t the only possible one, and that how well it works should be weighed against the counterfactuals, even if they do not exist.