Yes, Virgina, the World is Getting Flat
Harry Pence | 18 April, 2006 09:17
While at a National Meeting of the American Chemical Society several years ago, I went to hear a paper given in a symposium sponsored by one of the smaller Divisions. I was interested because the abstract indicated that the speaker was going to talk about the development of a new industrial product. The actual paper turned out to be much more surprising than I had expected. The speaker explained that a new compound had been synthesized at university lab in New Jersey. A company expressed interest in the commercial potential of this compound, and so the main laboratory was asked to recheck the synthesis and properties. If I remember correctly, that main laboratory was in Massachusetts. The compound still looked promising, so the job of developing a pilot plant operation for producing the compound was assigned to a laboratory in Europe. Finally, the commercial production was scheduled for the company’s main plant, which was in North Carolina. The speaker indicated that representatives from all the different units were deeply involved throughout the process, but the entire process was managed by a series of teleconferences. At no time did these representatives assemble in the same room. I came away from the paper with an uneasy feeling that I needed to think about how to prepare my students for this new type of industrial environment.
I am currently reading Tom Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat.” and that uneasy feeling is growing much stronger with each page that I read. In order for our students to compete with the rest of the world, it is essential that they not just understand, but be comfortable with, the process of network collaboration. More and more of the processes that once were performed totally within our national boundaries are now being shifted overseas. The availability of high-speed Internet communications and highly-trained professionals in India and China is changing the industrial environment. Increasingly, American workers are responsible for coordinating their efforts with research that is taking place thousands of miles away, and doing it in real time. Our educational system seems to be moving in the opposite direction, increasingly emphasizing independent work on high-stakes examinations. With relatively few exceptions, students are left to develop their social networking skills on their own. If anyone thinks that students are learning about a network by using Xanga or MySpace, they have not looked at pages on these sites. A typical page is almost guaranteed to make a real web designer cringe. Some students may become competent if left to their own devices, but most of them need some guidance.
If you agree with me that this is a problem that needs to be discussed, it involves several separate issues. What skills should we be teaching our students; how are these skills best taught; and how do we fit another large topic into a curriculum that is already threatening to burst at the seams?
I am currently reading Tom Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat.” and that uneasy feeling is growing much stronger with each page that I read. In order for our students to compete with the rest of the world, it is essential that they not just understand, but be comfortable with, the process of network collaboration. More and more of the processes that once were performed totally within our national boundaries are now being shifted overseas. The availability of high-speed Internet communications and highly-trained professionals in India and China is changing the industrial environment. Increasingly, American workers are responsible for coordinating their efforts with research that is taking place thousands of miles away, and doing it in real time. Our educational system seems to be moving in the opposite direction, increasingly emphasizing independent work on high-stakes examinations. With relatively few exceptions, students are left to develop their social networking skills on their own. If anyone thinks that students are learning about a network by using Xanga or MySpace, they have not looked at pages on these sites. A typical page is almost guaranteed to make a real web designer cringe. Some students may become competent if left to their own devices, but most of them need some guidance.
If you agree with me that this is a problem that needs to be discussed, it involves several separate issues. What skills should we be teaching our students; how are these skills best taught; and how do we fit another large topic into a curriculum that is already threatening to burst at the seams?
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