Standard of living is related to the average value add of your workforce, and that is related to the average educational level of your workforce. If you downgrade the average educational level of your workforce, relative to your competition, your standard of living will decline. (Friedman p. 372, emphasis added)
In other words, if we invest less into our people than other countries are investing in theirs, we will eventually fall behind. That is exactly the process that is occurring at this point in history. American students increasingly lag behind other countries in test scores, not just in science and math, but also in literacy and composition (p. 353). Proportionally and numerically, we graduate far fewer science, mathematics, and engineering majors than European and Asian frontrunners. There are "gaps" between the emerging American workforce and those developing in Europe and Asia in other productivity-related areas: ambition, funding for research, and infrastructure (p. 343-365). The only thing that has thus far sheltered American citizens from feeling the real effects of these trends is the fact that we have been so far ahead of the world in terms of resources (financial and otherwise) that we've been essentially untouchable. Think of the hare and the tortoise. Remember the part of the story when the hare thinks he can stop to nap and still win the race? The U.S. - representing the hare, obviously - has essentially been napping. What makes our race different from the story's is that while we've been napping the tortoise has strapped on rocket boots. Emerging economies are quickly catching up to us.
I think of the processes involved in global markets the same way as I think of the processes involved in biological evolution. In biological evolution, changes in the environment prompt species to evolve in order to become more fit for survival against their competition in that environment. The environment in which America has thrived is changing; therefore, our country will have to evolve in order to survive and compete.
My question is this: What "adaptations" will educators make in order to help America become better suited for survival in the new global economic environment? I have my own desires regarding what I'd like to see American educators doing, but first I'd like to explore what changes I think we can expect to see in the near future based on what we know about the current economic trends presented in Friedman's book.
Blended Instruction
Clayton M. Christensen, professor at the Harvard Business School, believes that more than 50% of all high school instruction will occur online by 2019 (Trotter, 2008). We've discussed the benefits of blended instruction - teaching that takes place both in a classroom and online - several times in class. Classrooms that have taken a blended approach report that learning is enhanced through the combination of face-to-face and internet time. Blended classrooms outperform both "pure" physical classrooms and "pure" online ones. There are many likely reasons for the academic success of blended classrooms. Online, instructional time isn't interrupted by phone calls, student behavior, or announcements. In a classroom, a teacher has to manage a group of 20+ individuals at once; online, the ratio can be as low as 1:1. This allows teachers to provide more personally tailored instruction for each of their students. Online classes allow students the flexibility to work when they feel most engaged and interested.
I think another factor will drive the widespread adoption of blended instruction, and that is cost. As broadband infrastructure spreads, households (and districts) will find it increasingly cheaper to access high-speed internet. The computers needed to access the broadband network will also become cheaper. Eventually, it might simply become more cost-effective for districts to host many of their classes online. Imagine a school where the students only visited the campus three days a week, and received instruction online during the other two days. Teachers and administrators could potentially work from home. With a system like this, the district could potentially save money on energy, busing, and maintenance bills. Obviously many operational sticking points would have to be resolved before a system like this could be implemented (were is the orchestra going to practice?), but how is that fundamentally different from education now? There are always points of contention; there is also always pressure to reduce operating costs.
Individualization
In The World Is Flat, Friedman often discusses how current technologies empower individuals. Web 2.0 and other tools allow individuals to "globalize" themselves: their work, their beliefs, and their ideas. These same tools also allow institutions and corporations to specialize, or "individualize," their services, advertising, and products. I believe that K-12 educational institutions will soon start taking advantage of "individualizing" tools on a massive scale. I already touched on how teachers can customize their instruction to each one of their students using the power of blended instruction, but this is only one way the internet can help make K-12 education more flexible and student-centered. Let's look at it from an administrative perspective.
To begin, think back to the discussions about electronic medical records that I know you've been hearing and reading about lately. What benefits do electronic medical records offer? There are a couple main ones. First, electronic medical records could theoretically be accessed quickly by any doctor worldwide. Second, these records would exist and be edited in one location - online. The information would therefore be easily transferrable from one doctor or hospital to another doctor or hospital.
Now, imagine a similar system for student records. The Infinite Campus system already does this to a certain degree, allowing teachers within a district to access a student's attendance, academic, and medical records online. Teachers can even access information about students' families and bus routes. Great - that's all useful stuff. But what if we took it further? Imagine a statewide or nationwide archive that tracked this information from kindergarten on, creating individual files for each student. Additional data, such as interests, work samples, hobbies, learning styles, graduation plans, test scores, and even teaching preferences, could also be archived and available for a student's teacher to access. Theoretically, a teacher could learn a lot about new students before even meeting them, which would make transitioning between classrooms, grades, and schools easier for the students. It could also make instructional planning easier for teachers.
I think that individualization will also allow more flexibility in the courses students are able to take. For good or ill, I think we will start to see "testing out" options available for students, at least on the high school level. There were most definitely some required courses in my high school curriculum that were a complete waste of my time - 9th Grade Computing and Technology, for instance. It would have been nice if I had been offered the option of testing out of that course, which presented material I had already mastered, and instead taken something like 10th Grade Biology. To some degree the possibility of "testing out" worries me; the ability to score well on a test about a subject does not always indicate the ability to think deeply and creatively about it. However, "testing out" of a required course could mean providing a portfolio to the appropriate authorities, and it would provide advanced students with the ability to avoid taking courses that won't further their understandings and skills.
Recommendations
At this point I've discussed what changes I believe we can be reasonably certain will affect K-12 education in the near future. Here's what additional changes I'd like to see implemented in K-12 ed. on a large scale.
1. Interdisciplinary Collaboration
I know it's hard to plan, but I think interdisciplinary instruction is simply one of the most powerful tools teachers possess for increasing their students' abilities. Friedman believes that the ability to innovate is to a significant degree grounded in the ability to think and create across disciplines. Interdisciplinary instruction also tends to be authentic; if a student uses math to gain insight about a social issue, they are doing what professional analysts do daily. Plus, interdisciplinary tasks are so much fun! I still vividly remember the big inter-classroom projects that I worked on in high school.
Life Skills
In 8th grade I was required to take a class called "Life Skills." It was essentially the 90s version of home ec. Supposedly I learned how to cook and how to sew. If you were to examine my cooking and my clothing at this point in time, you would quickly understand that I did not gain anything lasting from that class. Sewing in class? Honestly? I like sewing, truly I do, but I don't believe it's a skill that I need to make my life function.
Here are some real life skills:
- The ability to examine and critique one's own values and thinking
- The ability to see connections between ourselves and other individuals and communities
- The ability to draw logical conclusions through rigorous questioning and (re)searching for information (Friedman 2007)
Thirty years ago, the socioeconomic evolutionary forces looked and acted differently than they do today. Today's "life skills," the skills that will enable a person to function on a day-to-day basis, involve the processing of information. Do I, a student, really need to spend a semester learning how to make various egg recipes when I can get cooking information from Google within minutes? Isn't it more important for me to learn how to critique and interpret information that I find on Google, since that's what I'll probably be doing every day in the future?
In the next century it will be more important for students to think than sew. My last thought is that our national education system needs to update its curriculum in order to support students' cognitive growth. We need more technology classes, certainly, but teaching students how to use technology is not enough. Current collaborative technologies are simply ways in which ideas can be transfered. We need to make sure that our students can come up with good ideas.
Sources Cited
Friedman, T. L. (2007) The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York, NY: Picador.
Trotter, A (2008 October 17). Disruptive Innovation. Digital Directions, 2, Retrieved July 16 2009, from http://www.edweek.org/dd/toc/2008/10/20/index.html
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