Premise: someone asked "what is the economic value of human life". To be fair to them, I think they were trying to make the point that some things cannot be measured.
I currently work in a public sector digital transformation company, and my primary role is cost-benefit analysis; I report to an Economist, and when I started this role, he told me "civil servants only have time and resources for two things: saving money, saving lives. So, while you can showcase every other type of impact, these are the two that are going to be integral to decision-making". At the time I had so many problems with this (I still do), but now in hindsight, at least they weren't trying to equate monetary savings and life savings. I mean at some level, the decision-makers would... But at least we weren't putting an obvious number to it the way we do with carbon tracking.
Back to the space where someone (our economics faculty) asked "what is the economic value of human life", without a moment's hesitation, folks started suggesting that you can quite easily compute it based on "the earning potential" of people. It took me a while to comprehend the words people were saying and then I bounced back with a measly "what about the value you create for the world? Making a case for my teachers and non-profit workers". Someone responded "well, you can calculate how much parents are willing to pay for a tutor over an AI or recorded lecture".
I am sure the quality of our engagement would've been better under less fast-paced circumstances, and hence my plea for us to stop or at least pause the trolley sometimes... But regardless, when did we as a humanity stoop down to the level of measuring human life as just equivalent to "earning potential". How sexist, racist, casteist, ableist... would we be if we were to do that given how unequal and unfair moneymaking is in today's world! But let's get over that: let's assume for a second that the world is equal and everyone who sows the seeds reaps the rewards. Even in that world, knowing full well that the rewards a teacher reaps is different from the rewards a software engineer reaps (I have been both: the best teachers give children psychological safety amongst other things; while most of the best software engineers of our times are actively taking away our children's safety by ignorantly amplifying the reach of poorly designed social media websites); when did we, even subconsciously start valuing software engineers more than teachers!
No wonder teachers are leaving more and more to become tutors and other things. I am a teacher who left teaching and started doing other things. I am also a person who has in the past questioned my own value as a teacher and a non-profit worker: "I could've created more value in this world had I worked in let's say an Amazon and donated 10% of my money to a charity", I said. My wiser, kinder, smarter mentor said "but you'd have strengthened a system you're actively trying to break".
Software engineers and others who make money, change the fate of their families and sometimes communities, and find other ways to contribute to the world need to be lauded: I have nothing against them! Most of my friends are them and all things considered, the world is better off for them! But not at the cost of de-valuing our teachers.
Yes, you can find and build AI and video tutorials to replace teachers when it comes to teaching 'instrumentalist' content to some extent. But not the more 'expressive' aspects of education, at least not yet (in my opinion not ever!). In other words, if the purpose of education is employability and economic outcomes, then sure you can replace most teachers. But hopefully there's more to education than employability? Hopefully, there's more to life than making money? And hopefully there's more to children than future potential as "labour".
To compute the economic value of human beings, especially teachers, is to declare that one does not believe in the non-economic value of children (and adults). Hopefully, that's not where we're at as a humanity. End of rant, thank you!
