Yes, teach her some basic secretarial skills
No, this isn’t a sexist thing; it’s a 21st century thing. Teaching your daughter these skills won’t turn her into a secretary any more than teaching her to cook will turn her into a chef. When a person learns admin skills, not only do they become a better communicator, they also learn modern skills that 21st century jobs are heavily reliant upon.
Keyboarding skills. I remember back in high school, there were already an equal number of guys and gals in the typewriting class. Although in the 80s, they didn’t call it typewriting—it was called keyboarding. It coincided with the boon of home computers and the emergence of all things geekiness. I took the one-semester class that required no prerequisites and had not advanced course to follow. In a matter of four weeks, I became a touch typist! We learned it on manual typewriters which had the letters and numbers rubbed off from the keys. All the students learn to touch type in this way. It’s still a skill I use every day! And I smile at the folks in the office still composing emails using two index fingers.
Technology has become the indispensable trade. And being the interface between machine and people will be the literacy skill.
Organizational skills. One of the great things about having an admin to support me was the work they do to help me plough through the details and manage my calendar. So much valuable work is done for me even before I start to do my job! Over the years, I’ve had to learn their skills as every workplace I was at had fewer and fewer secretaries and admin assistants on the team. Their service is sorely missed. Imagine a doctor’s office without front line workers who perform document management and calendar bookings!
Tech skills. Secretaries have always been their own tech support fixing their equipment problems. From ordering replacement IBM Selectric font balls, unraveling Dictaphone cassettes to making their own cardboard keyboard templates for the earliest word processors like Wordstar and WordPerfect, they did it all. Given the pervasiveness of technology and A.I., the most effective knowledge worker can’t simply be just a user of tech, they have to operate, diagnose and even reprogram their own tools! So, let her watch you troubleshoot PC problems at home. While you may not need to teach her how to calculate IP subnet masks, you should expose her to classes and camps that teach kids STEM and robotics. Guarantee that they’ll code in HTML and CSS. Most 10 year-olds these days know that Python is not just a reptile.
What’s old will always be new again. And what’s useful will never go out of style. In the brave new world, assembly lines are replaced by ‘bots, clerical tasks by algorithms and even A.I. will displace everything from analytics to financial services. Technology has become the indispensable trade. Being the interface between machine and people will be the literacy skill.
