The World is Flat - And how does it pertain to education?
I finished Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat. Generally, there is much food for thought here. Actually, maybe too much. At almost 500 pages, he tends to be long-winded, providing more than enough examples to back up his various theories. As I said in my earlier post on this book, he doesn’t directly explore how a flattening world connects with our present educational system, but there are several references and a number of opportunities for readers to draw some of their own connections. A few bits from the book that I found interesting and thought provoking…
Friedman presents Flattner #7 as supply chaining and uses Wal-Mart as the epitome of effective supply chaining. After having spent much of the summer working with Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline, it was interesting to me to see a real world example of how literally every player in the Wal-Mart supply chain constantly knows what the needs are of the other pieces in the puzzle. This super-efficiency is obviously a good chunk of Wal-Mart’s success.
“Wal-mart’s theory was that the more information everyone had about what customers were pulling off the shelves, the more efficient Wal-Mart’s buying would be, the quicker its suppliers could adapt to changing market demand.”
In education, we can’t seem to communicate as efficiently. In fact, sometimes I think that we intentionally try to make sure one part of the system doesn’t know what another part is doing. We are so backwards!
In the section where he talks about the three convergences, there is a quote which could be lifted and used to make an argument for effective technology integration in our schools.
“Introducting new technology alone is never enough. The big spurts in productivity come when a new technology is combined with new ways of doing business.”
Ah yes...."new ways of doing business.” He goes on to cite examples of how technology has transformed the way the “real world” does business. This has not occured in education. We still do business the same way, AND expect the technology to make a difference. Well until we change the way we educate, the technology will not have the effect that we would like it to. Yes, new technology alone is never enough.
“...the winners will be those who learn the habits, processes, and skills most quickly.” Will our schools be “winners?” Will some of our schools be “winners” and some be “losers?” Or will all, or almost all schools be “losers?” I think only those schools with the vision and imagination to grasp onto new technologies and change their ways will become the “winners.” All others may well be left behind, finding themselves obsolete.
Many aspects of American life, including education, will need to change in order to survive.
The long-term opportunities and challenges that the flattening of the world puts before the United States are profound. Therefore, our ability to get by doing things the way we’ve been doing them—which is to say, not always tending to our secret sauce and enriching it—will not suffice anymore. “For a country as wealthy as we are, it is amazing how little we are doing to enhance our natural competitiveness,” said Dinakar Singh, the Indian-American hedge fund manager. “We are in a world that has a system that now allows convergence among many billions of people, and we had better step back and figure out what it means. It would be a nice coincidence if all the things that were true before are still true now—but there are quite a few things you actually need to do differently...You need to have a much more thoughtful national discusssion.” The flat world, Sing argued, is now the elephant in the room, and the question is, What is it going to do to us, and what are we going to do to it?
There is an arrogance from some in our school system. Those people exhibiting this dangerous attitude think that we are doing a good enough job. They tout the wonderful things going on (and there are some good things). But we do nothing to address the weaknesses in the system (and there certainly are weaknesses). They create a false sense of accomplishment which may well turn into crisis sooner than later while the rest of the world rapidly changes, and education moves slowly, if at all.
Our national, state, and local educational leaders lack the ability to dream. They focus on the memories of the past at the expense of imagining the possibilities for the future.
By dreams I mean the positive, life-affirming variety. The business organization consultant Michael Hammer once remarked, “One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past. Same with countries. You don’t want to forget your identity. I am glad you were great in the fourteenth centruy, but that was then and this is now. When memories exceed dreams, the end is near. The hallmark of a truly successful organization is the willingness to abandon what made it successful and start fresh.”
Substitute school or school district and it makes total sense. We cannot believe our schools are good enough, or that we are good enough - or it’s the other school or district that needs to catch up to us by changing. We must see our schools in the big picture - as a player and part of this greater system called the world - the flat world. “We Americans will have to work harder, run faster, and become smarter to make sure we get our share.” I hope in my lifetime and beyond that our country can maintain the ability to provide vision and imagination for the world we live in. We will need to address the greater issue of how we fit into the new world if we are ever to maintain our economic status.
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