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?
Helping Students Understand & Embrace Globalization
Submitted by Martha Eldredge Heck (not verified) on November 2, 2007 - 10:22.
I work with nine large suburban high schools. We have been studying, discussing, and hosting seminars on Friedman's book for three years. Some of the resources we have utilized are the International Education and Resource Network (www.iearn.org), which involves 20,000 K-12 schools collaborating on more than 150 projects in 115 countries. Teachers and students can join a project, and once they have participated in a completed project, they can create their own and ask the world to join them. Projects are available in a variety of areas, from writing poetry, to working on environmental issues, to sharing architectural plans or recipes, to understanding math applications. Projects are defined as structured interactions among students with specific discussion topics, activities, and a final “product” that shares learning & helps build a better world.
We have also utilized Globalization 101 (www.globalization101.org), a website which is a project of The Carnegie Endowment. This website features issue briefs and corresponding lesson plans (aligned with state standards), along with webcasts from speakers such as the author of The Google Story or the former governor of The Federal Reserve Bank.
We have also encouraged collaboration between our career and technical education classes and our core academic classes.
Yes...the world is FLAT and we are all in this together!
Submitted by Valerie Chernek (not verified) on November 1, 2007 - 12:36.
So, where can we as individuals and communities begin to make changes to view the world as flat?
As a non-educator, I can envision many wonderful scenarios:
In our businesses...encouraging collaborations and employeee support for neighboring schools.
As a volunteer to support educators who are eager to learn and use new technologies, but have no-one to take their place in class.
In our homes...sharing the importance of respect for learning and for the educators, administrators and fellow students who we have contact with.
In ourselves...for protecting the institution of education without placing blame and encouraging these professionals that they can make a difference in the lives of every child.
We are in this together! What shifts will you make to help "education" continue to move forward?
Comments on a "Flat World"
Submitted by Mary (not verified) on October 1, 2007 - 17:28.
I was first introduced to this book by another educator. Our conversation centered not around the "economic effects" that the U.S. would likely feel as the world became "flatter" but how this book would potentially influence today's educators.
We discussed our own "preparedness" in the classroom and how this translates to our students. We asked ourselves about technology usage in our teaching, promotion of second language development, encouraging more team-based problem solving and the further development of writing skills.
As we move forward into this "flatter" world of ours,recognition of how this will affect our future leaders is up to us to address right now. Are we doing enough? Will they have the skills to work at a more "global" level?
The "rate of change" is happening at a pace that's tough to keep up with. Educationally, it's no different.
Teaching has been a
Submitted by sriram srirangam (not verified) on January 18, 2007 - 10:40.
Teaching has been a wonderful experience- full of relief, certainty and excitement since the world went flat! Gaps in availability of information have been in the process of disappearing. Kids from any where in the country- basically the urban part- can access the best information and insignhts which were reserved for the metropeople till a decade back. However, rural-urban, rich-poor and centr-periphery differences still persisit and hopefully will vanish as the world gets flatter and flatter.
sriram srirangam,
Sriram's IAS
New Delhi
As an educator for over 30
Submitted by Marge Brink (not verified) on November 6, 2006 - 17:39.
As an educator for over 30 years, recently working in alternative education, I am concerned that the current educational processes that devalues skills and abilities off all students. I could name many students with communication, reflective and/ or creative skills that, because they do not fit the institution of school, are placed elsewhere. For example, a bright student wrote in the school newspaper questioning why his school celebrated athleticism over academics. Seen as a trouble maker, he was "punished: by his school and sent to an alternative program. The result was a bright, angry and vocal student.
Luckly, the program he attended was able to address his needs and mollify his anger. he graduated and attends college. What was interesting and overlooked by everyone was that he had great empathy for children that were deaf. His younger brother was deaf, attended a state school for the deaf. Home from school, riding a bike, he was hit by a car and killed. The students from the state school attended the funeral. I did also. What I saw was my alternative school student signing and communicating with his brother's friends, attending to their tears and needs and being a very warm, caring individual.
he had been my student for a year and a half and at his home school district for over 4. No one had this piece of the information.
With the "flattening" of the world we can not look at any individual here or elsewhere only focusing on the B+s or acadmeic genius. We MUST look at each and every whole child and celebrate whatever their gifts are. By doing that we will be building efficacy and ingenuity in people so they have place and purpose in this flat world.
athletics and academics
Submitted by David Phillips (not verified) on October 31, 2007 - 12:37.
I certainly concur that in many districts its: "Thousands for technology and millions for athletics." However, although the reality of school is that athletics often take precidence over all, I refuse to accept that status quo as the necessary condition of the future. Each teacher needs to be a real change agent in the school district--and often it's our administrators who need to be informed and changed the most. I'm certain that anger will get an angry response from those in power, but I'm also certain that (eventually) good information and the demonstration of our students abilities--students at all academic levels, will eventually win over wrong-headed ideas about what is important for schools. If I'm dreaming, let me dream on.
As far as education is
Submitted by Sam Graves (not verified) on December 13, 2006 - 19:01.
As far as education is concerned, Mr Friedman needed almost 500 pages to inform me that the following are critical issues for our future:
1. Education is important.
2. Students need to be good learners (constantly learning and re-educating ourselves).
3. Students need to have good people skills.
4. Students need to be adaptable.
No duh!?
We are 20th Century educators, using 19th Century methods, to educate 21st Century students.
Thank you for starting an
Submitted by Linda Sweeney (not verified) on October 31, 2006 - 01:08.
Thank you for starting an education-related blog on this book. It has intrigued me ever since I read the first edition, so much so that I just bought the updated version.
I have been searching for a way to get its point across to high school students without success. I tried out some of the data on my "high-need" economics students last year, but I couldn't motivate them to change their educational strategies based on this new competition that they hadn't yet experienced.
When I was in high school, the Russians were beating the US in the space race, so we were given this patriotic charge to beef up our math and science knowledge. Of course, in those days, we absorbed this challenge less critically than today's students. These days, our politically-obsessed government officials want us to think they have handled it. No President has felt safe exhorting us to better behavior since Jimmy Carter lost.
Does anyone know of a lesson plan online or have some suggestions on how teachers, social studies or otherwise, could put the message of Friedman's theory into teenage-accessible form?
Check out MAX Teaching
Submitted by Aaron Smith (not verified) on September 23, 2008 - 09:22.
MAX Teaching is a learning strategy which uses reading, writing, speaking, and listening to get the most out of content-related classes. Author Mark Forget emphasizes that most classwork (meaningless section review checkups) is merely decoding information, not the critical thinking essential. MAX stands for Motivation, Acquisition, and Extension. MAX is not only for the reading class, but encourages and empowers the teacher to teach literacy skills along with the material. Statistics show that most kids that don't learn to develop higher level reading skills (literal, inferential, applicational, and so on) by the 4th grade, don't learn at all. Forget's material can be applied to most any grade level (4th-12th) or subject (shop class, history, etc.). This book is divided into two parts.
Part I presents to the reader three essential components of a complete reading/writing-to-learn classroom. Part II describes specific classroom strategies that have been developed over the last three decades.
Check out the website at www.maxteaching.com or search "google books" to read the book.
Using ICT, Project Based Learning (PBL) and Thematic Units
Submitted by Jasmine J. Scott (not verified) on December 13, 2007 - 10:09.
Hi! Linda.
I have enclosed the URL for my website (http://pirate.shu.edu/~scottjas/) which will take you to a series of lessons that put the message of Friedman's theory into teenage accessible form. All the lessons are accessible from either the IT Thematic Unit or the E-learning Courses link. You may find the unit "A Financial and Career "Coping" Life Skills - an Interdisciplinary Unit for College Freshmen" not only pedagogically challenging for the students, but allows you to adapt the role of a facilitator. This is due to the partnering between instructional technology and project based learning (PBL). Blogs,Quia.com "Rags to Riches" game, and project writing are just a few of the supplementary activities.
Modules, such as budgeting, understanding the fiscal role of government, and starting a business (simulation)provide each student with learning experiences and real-world purpose and meaning.Webquest such as "Come and Explore The Jewels of The Caribbean" gives students the opportunity to think out of the box, work as a team in completing challenging tasks and reinforces the need for reflection and journal entries as they complete each assignment. The lessons are designed to run either for a semester, year long, or a couple of class sessions.
Good luck!
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