What Does "The World Is Flat" Mean for Education?: A Closer Look at Our Educational Globe
By Chris O’Neal
10/17/06
So, you've heard that the world is now "flat," according to New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman. What does this mean for education? Let's take a brief look at Friedman's bestseller, The World Is Flat.
Friedman speaks about drastic changes that have occurred in the last fifteen years or so -- events that have leveled the global playing field. He refers to ten "flatteners": things that have enabled us to connect with the rest of the world much more easily than ever before. Events such as the fall of the Berlin wall, Netscape going public, and the new world of "technologies on steroids" -- cell phones, wireless devices, always being connected, and so on -- have made our world a new place.
Key players, thanks to new tools, can play new roles in new ways. A leveled playing field has been created. Employees from one organization are no longer working side-by-side inside the same building. Individuals from anywhere can compete with others from around the world. This convergence gives a new feel to how successful twenty-first-century businesses operate and how twenty-first-century learners can learn.
Friedman has some interesting points I think are worthy of consideration. For example, he states that thirty-five years ago, if you had the choice between being born a B+ student in Brooklyn or a genius in Bangalore, India, you'd rather be born the B+ student in Brooklyn, because your life opportunities would be so much greater in Brooklyn, even as a B+ student. Today, you'd much rather be born a genius in Bangalore, because when the world is flat, and you can plug and play, collaborate and connect, just like you can from Brooklyn, your life chances and opportunities hold more potential than ever before.
Friedman talks about the "untouchables" -- those people whose job won't be outsourced or merged. Those are entertainers, authors, great motivators, specialists, and so on. Another group of untouchables are our locals: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.
Besides the untouchables, Friedman suggests there will be eight types of jobs for the middle class that will be in demand for a long time to come. They include the great corroborators, the great leveragers, the great synthesizers, the passionate personalizers, the great localizers, the "green ones," the great explainers, and the great adapters. Those with these skills are less affected by changes in careers, new job requirements, and so on, because these are lifelong skills that don't become obsolete.
Friedman's suggestion that we should be "learning to learn" is nothing new to those of us in education, but it does give it new weight, as he warns that "what we learn today in school will be outdated by tomorrow, and therefore, the most successful people in the 'flat world' will be those who can adapt and learn quickly. The greater our curiosity and passion for learning, the greater chances we will have for success later in life."
The book paints a remarkable picture for twenty-first-century living and learning, whether you agree with all his points or not. In recent years, many political and socioeconomic barriers have slowly been removed, and huge technological advances have been made. The book explores what that means in regard to changing how we do business, and how we operate in a globally competitive society.
In a recent talk about this book, I asked a school principal what the book meant to her, and she replied, "I'm exhilarated by what this means for me, the teachers in my building, and the students we teach. We have the power to make great strides with what we're given. The challenge will be how to take advantage of all this in the educational setting, and try to make sure our classrooms are flat."
Let's hear what you all have to say. How does a flat world affect us personally? What do you think this means for our classrooms? How do we ensure that our children have the twenty-first-century skills to succeed in the new flat world?
The gap between the rich and the poor , the haves and the havenots.. has increased. The places in which we live and work in the USA are more multicultural, and the schools are divided by economic apartheid. In addition we have a group of people , the businesses, who think we need more NCLB.
That lets us know that they don't really know us, know the schools, or the problems we have.
There was an incredible group of 900 at the Convocation for the Gathering Storm, and
the conclusion was that K-12 needs work, and that science should be tested.
What kind of science? Whose test , testing reading science or real science?What kind of test? Work , research? we need to find out why teachers leave the profession after a year or two, why people are teaching out of their areas of expertise, why testing alone is the mantra.
There are other ways of testing, but we have pretests, regular tests, school level tests, grade level prep tests, IQ tests, state standards tests and then oh yeah.. testing for NCLB. Where is the time for the turning over of an idea in the mind, and working to solve a problem , of exploration, examination, and innovative ways of thinking that create those aha moments with kids?
Teaching, toward the test and that's all does not require much of a teacher, more a parrot.
Bonnie Bracey Sutton
I too was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine and taught economics and marketing to students of the former Soviet Union. Their learning style was to memorize and retell but the main difference I saw between our two countries was the way students and parents respect the teacher. In the US, teachers are not respected and teaching is mainly supported by politicians looking for reelection. I do not support the memorization technique but it is important for students to learn terminology. I teach business and marketing to high school students in Las Vegas, Nevada and the students here do not think outside of the city, let alone the State of Nevada. The parents do not reinforce the learning at home but expect results and support the idea of keeping schools accountable. I have read Mr. Friedman's book and listened to him speak at UNLV, he even signed my book, and I completely buy into his thoughts on the global workplace and the transmission of data but a major point he makes is that the Federal Government does not fund initiatives. They potificate but never fund the mandate and that will ultimately lead to our demise as the sole superpower. There are many places to put the blame of our educational system and why our students are more reluctant to learn then ever before but the real challenge before educators is making our individual classes interesting and relevant.
I'm enjoying the ongoing dialogue here about the book and Friedman's take on the impact of a flattening world. I would absolutely agree that we still have some huge digital divide issues (and economic, health, welfare, etc.) across the world, which also need to be on the front burner. Perhaps he'll use his influence to bring a spotlight to those issues as well! (Check out The Digital Divide Network for some great information).
What I like about a book like this is that even though it's not specifically written for educators, it can provoke great professional dialogue. Getting all of us in education to think outside the bubble, even when we don't necessarily agree, is always a great thing!
The key to flattening the gap between the rich and the poor is access to education, particularly higher education. The GI Bill, offering free education to all of the military after WWII, gave the U.S. the greatest middle class the world has ever known, but today, access to higher education is being made harder to get, with higher tuition costs and interest on school loans. Fewer people can afford to go to the University or College. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening.
But the gap between the haves and the have nots.... the rich and the poor.... is not flattening out. It is getting steeper, all over the world. Friedman admits that he missed this in the first edition of his book and has written a new edition.... but it is still not adequately dealt with.
The World Is Flat gave me much to think about as a high school principal----were we giving our students the skills they would need in the flat world? The faculty and I debated that concept. I think the hardest thing for educators to do is realize that we have to change how and what we teach to keep up with the demands of a flat world. We have decided to become a conversion charter school with an emphasis on "new skills for a new century." Our overarching theme is interdisciplinary instruction with an emphasis on problem and project based education. We believe and research supports that the skills our young people will need for tomorrow are not the same as today. The important thing to remember is that technology continues to flatten the world and our students must be able to compete. Our decision to become a conversion charter was not based on the book; however, it added food for thought.
Our school division in Virginia has chosen this book as their focus for the school year. I agree with many of Friedman's ideas, but must agree with some other posters who pointed out that not everyone has access to the wonders of technology. Those places and people will only fall behind at a faster pace than ever before. How can a child who's never seen a computer compete in a world where my 5-year-old niece can surf the net? Mountains, indeed!
The bigger problem is the fact that the American education system is not designed with "learning how to learn" in mind. We teachers are imprisioned by NCLB and mandatory testing that usually only shows how much a student can memorize. It's far too costly to test what students really know and can do. A multiple choice bubble-sheet test is more economical, and the results are more concrete. Can Johnny memorize the dates of World War II? Maybe. Does that mean he can compete in a global economy where critical thinking and learning how to learn are essential? Probably not, since all we taught him to care about was the test that counted for AYP.
If the world is flattening out, we need to completely revise the way we teach and test. I don't know if that is even possible on a national scale. My fear is that we won't adapt now, and our children will regret it later.
The flat world offers a great opportunity for educators to transform how children and young people learn at school. But schooling itself can work against such transformation. Formal schooling tends toward convergent thinking, while the flat world challenges us to think divergently. Education conserves the past, while the flat world presents exciting options for the future. Hopefully there will be a growing number of educators who want to propel our students forward. We just have to turn the classroom paradigm around: the student and the learning have to be the focal point, not the teacher and the traditional curriculum.
I believe that the point of the premise that the world is flat should be that the digital divide is narrowing. A recent Roper Poll indicates that America's students are woefully behind in their knowledge of geography as compared to students in other countries. In order to compete in a world in which the digital divide continues to narrow, our students need to increase their knowledge of the world.
In response to this poll, a national campaign has been initiated and can be found at MyWonderfulWorld.org. This is a National Geographic Education Fund-led campaign with support from sponsors such as PTA, 4H, NBA, Bush Gardens, Etc. The site has activities for parents, educators and students which promote geography literacy.
As a grandparent, parent, retired educator and a member of the Mississippi Geographic Alliance, I encourage you to promote geography literacy. Friedman's thoughts provoke the need to better understand how narrowing the gap in the digital divide is producing new challenges for our future citizens. They need to be better prepared to meet these challenges.
I just finished re-reading Friedman's book. I thought that one of the most powerful concepts in the book was that of "the local untouchables". Think of the secure future that belongs to our kids coming out of vocational schools. Who do you think will face a more certain ecomonic future - the B+ liberal arts grad or that 18 year old who is a whiz in plumbing or HVAC?