The Future of Education

Creating a 20/20 VisionFor the Class of 2020

Dan Jecks

Futurist Authors

Friedman (2007)

• Three Eras leading to the flat world– Globalization 1.0 (1400-1800 AD)• Countries Globalizing – Who best used the most power

– Globalization 2.0 (1800-2000 AD)• Companies Globalizing – Expansion of multinationals• Steam engine reduces transportation costs • PC/Fiber-optics/Phones reduces communication costs

– Globalization 3.0 (21st Century)• Individuals Globalizing – You can rise from anywhere

21st Century – G3.0

• Individuals Globalizing– PC led to everyone able to create their own

content– Fiber-optic cable gave everyone access– Work flow and open source software allowed

people to collaborate virtually from a distance

With universal PDF files, it no longer mattered which platform you used to create a document.

How did we get here?

10 FLATTENERSLeveling the Global Playing Field

Flattener #1

1989 Berlin Wall Falls• Balance tipped toward

democracy and free-market• Millions of people in tightly

controlled India, China, Brazil and the Former Soviet Empire became consumers

• Common standards could be established

• Allowed best-practices to freely flow

1990 Microsoft Windows

• Millions of people could author their own content more easily and cheaply than ever before

Flattener #2

Netscape’s Web Browser-1995• The internet was brought to

regular folks• The browser was free• It was user-friendly• Not just bits/bytes, but

documents could be shared and accessed

• Kids and adults could both use this, not just techies

Flattener #3

Workflow software developed• People wanted to do more

than email and share pictures – they wanted to create things using the internet

• Do anything from any computer from anywhere seamlessly

• SMPT: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

• TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol

Standard Protocols

• Free Wi-Fi access• Investors poor money into

internet bubble leading to fiber-optic network

Greater Access

Flattener #4

Uploading • Content is no longer filtered by

media conglomerates• Amazon.com lets users write

reviews instead of paying critics

• Uploads are raw content developed by regular people to be shared anywhere

Flattener #5

Outsourcing • Individuals used to aspire to

move to the U.S. to get someplace in business

• Now, they can live in their home country and work for the same business

• Standards of living make it win-win for employee and employer

• Indian techies fixed Y2K from India

Flattener #6

Off-shoring • Another from of collaboration• Companies move to different

locations to do the same work cheaper– Lower labor costs– Government subsidies– Lower health care costs– Lower taxes

• China enters WTO– Companies now safe to go there

• Low-end jobs in America become high-end jobs in India & China

• Chinese focus– Sold In China– Made In China– Designed in China– Dreamed in China

Flattener #7

Supply Chaining • Take advantage of the best

producers at the lowest prices or your competitors will

• Manufacturers don’t shift to small stores, so Walmart set up distribution centers

• Using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips on pallets, produc ts are inventoried as a group instead of by bar code

Flattener #8

In-Sourcing• Toshiba:

– You call to ask about repairing your computer

– Toshiba tells you to ship it to them

– UPS picks up the computer– UPS fixes it for you– UPS ships it back to you in a

few days– Your computer never goes to

Japan– Toshiba & UPS share profit

Flattener #9

In-Forming – Google, Yahoo, MSN Web search• Individuals no longer need someone to tell them the

answer – they find it themselves• The more people search, the more Google knows how

to give them what they are looking for• The more Google gives people what they want, the

more they use Google

Flattener #10

Steroids – Digital, Mobile, Personal, and Virtual

• Personal digital devices like mobile phones

• Information is personalized, at your fingertips, wireless, increasingly accurate, and completely collaborative

• Instant messaging and texting is free or inexpensive

The Triple Convergence

• The world moved from command and control to connect and collaborate– Airlines allowed passengers to

print their own tickets– Incentive for passengers = board

first and get best seat choice– Incentive for Airline = no need for

ticket agents or printing costs

The Triple Convergence

• By the year 2000 machines were able to perform multiple functions

• Instead of top-down, companies used collaboration and horizontalization to improve

• Each flattener reinforced one another• Newly free countries came on the scene right

as the world became a place where location no longer mattered

The Great Sorting Out

• Technology and capital become free of borders• Example: Chinese-owned company headquartered in

New York, with a Chinese chairman, and American CEO, listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange

• Shareholders don’t care about where the profits come from, but politicians do

• Labor vs. capital (Union vs. Company) has shifted to worker vs. consumer– Consumer tells company “I want more for less”– Company tells worker they must produce more for less to

compete and stay in business

AMERICA AND FREE TRADE

“But the broader argument of this whole section of the book – ‘America and the Flat World’ – is that while protectionism would be counterproductive, a policy of free trade, while necessary, is not enough by itself. It must be accompanied by a focused domestic strategy aimed at upgrading the education of every American, so that he or she will be able to compete for jobs in a flat world.”

-Friedman

Daniel Pink

What Jobs Will Exist?

Computers and machines continue to reduce the need for manual labor

“CAN A COMPUTER DO IT FASTER?”

What Jobs Will Be Available?

Populations of India and China are growing. More supply brings down labor costs.

“CAN SOMEONE DO THE JOB CHEAPER?”

Will Someone Want What I Offer?

We live in an age of abundance.“IS WHAT I OFFER IN DEMAND?”

What Era Are We In?

• Agriculture Age farmers• Industrial Age factory workers• Information Age knowledge workers• Conceptual Age creators and empathizers

CREATIVITYThe Competitive Difference for Our Students in the Future:

What we need to do to prepare our students…

Daniel Pink Suggests We Teach to the Right Brain:

Design - Moving beyond function to engage the sense.

Story - Narrative added to products and services - not just argument. Someone somewhere will track down a counterpoint – persuasion.

Symphony - Adding invention and big picture thinking (not just detail focus). We demand synthesis, not analysis. (SIP???)

Empathy - Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.

Play - Bringing humor and light-heartedness to business and products.

Meaning – We have plenty, so we may pursue purpose and transcendence.

What we need to do to prepare our students…

Thomas Friedman Suggests We Make Ourselves “Untouchable.”

• 3,000,000,000 new people have joined the workforce thanks to India, China, the former Soviet Union, and the South American countries who have joined in free trade.

• Many of them come from cultures that value education.

• There is no such thing as an American job anymore, just a job – and in more cases than ever before jobs will go to the best, smartest, most productive, or cheapest worker, wherever s/he lives.

• Companies will get ahead by creating new “needs” that used to be “wants.”

• GM has On Star and satellite radio that many can no longer live without.

• Our students must be allowed to develop their creativity so they are prepared to think of these new ideas.

You've only been to The Fudgery if you detected the aroma of fudge boiling in a copper kettle;

You saw a cast member delight an audience with song, dance, and jokes;

You heard, "You've got to sing for your fudge";

You indulge in the taste of fudge still warm from its meticulous batching and cooking and skilled crafting into a mouth watering scrumptious loaf;

You raise your right hand and say, "I... your name... promise to always LOVE THAT FUDGE!"

Students must be passionate about their work

Math• Math is becoming more important with all of our new

data-driven jobs. • Even search engines like Google change words into

numbers and create formulas to improve search results. • Police investigators are starting to use math to code

crime scene photos and catch criminals. • Elite mathematicians will become the next generation

of sought-after employees.

Friedman notes that it will be more important to know how to get information than it will be to know things. We must teach our students how to quickly navigate through all of the information available on the internet and make it work for them.

Daniel Pink suggests that we must develop right-brain thinkers.

Computers and machines can automate left-brain functions, but creativity is still uniquely human.

Friedman also points out that we must teach forging relationships over executing transactions, tackling novel challenges over solving routine problems, and synthesizing the big picture over analyzing details.

• People with hobbies tend to be able to communicate, be more social, ask for help more readily, help others more frequently, and can tie together concepts from different disciplines.

• People who play instruments, sing, paint, act dramatically, and participate on teams develop important right-brain skills as well as interpersonal skills.

• We must encourage students to participate in a variety of team-oriented activities.

• We live in a different world. We must cut out of the curriculum those things that are no longer important so we can make way for new areas. – How important is cursive writing? – Tying shoes? – Reading analog clocks? – Even coloring within the lines may take

up too much time when kindergarteners have to remember their mom’s cell phone, their dad’s cell phone, their step-parent’s phone and address… things are different than they used to be.

• We must trade less important areas for more important areas.

Conclusion

Schools must evolve to keep ahead of society because we are preparing students for the future

we haven’t yet imagined.