"The World is Flat" Book Blog

Book Report Part #3

2007-05-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

"The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. A brief history of the twenty-first century.

According to Thomas Friedman, the bottom line for continuing in this ever-flattening world seems to be “manage it, for better or for worse.” (p.751)

The question for me is, how do I, Lola Haveman, manage my little part of it?

Well, to start, I do agree with Friedman when he says I “must not live in fear of either . . . al-Qaeda or of Infosys.” (p.751) Living in fear would cause me to put up walls and retreat into myself. If I do that, then I don’t get to benefit from all of the creativity, the love, and the joys that this world has to offer. I believe that nothing of value comes easily. As a woman, a friend, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a citizen, and a future teacher – I want to live life to its fullest. To make this happen, I’ll need to have faith and hard work and I'll need to reject fear.

Something I can do when I’m a teacher to manage my flattening world is to “push our young people to go beyond their comfort zones, to do things right, and to be ready to suffer some short-run pain for longer gain.” (p.388) To be authentic, I’ll also need to model this myself.

Some examples:

Going beyond my comfort zone = taking this Educational Technology class. I am moderately proficient with many mainstream computer applications. Technology on its own doesn’t interest me too much. It was a stretch to participate in this class and increase my proficiencies, but I can see the future benefit for myself and my students.

Suffer short-run pain for longer gain = being a part-time graduate student in the MAT program at SOU. Choosing to be a part-time student allows me to work full-time and take classes on evenings and weekends. I will receive my MAT degree one year after than those who chose the full-time program, but! I will be in less debt, I will have absorbed the material on a deeper level, and I will have spent more time with family and friends along the way.

Friedman consulted his religious teacher, Rabbi Tzvi Marx, while writing this book. His Rabbi had a great point of view on this idea of collaboration and globalization, “Collaboration so mankind can achieve its full potential is God’s hope.” (p.539) This is a positive way to sum up the somewhat scary and unknown horizons which seem to be coming towards us as our world flattens.

Book Report Part #2

2007-05-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

"The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. A brief history of the twenty-first century.

Perhaps the most interesting and personally relevant part of this book so far begins on p. 249, “Multiple Identity Disorder.” We have so many roles to play in this life: consumer, employee, investor, & tax payer, just to name a few. How do we reconcile each identity as we live and work and spend money, etc? There is no easy answer.

Friedman starts with an interesting illustration between Wal-Mart and Costco. Wal-Mart does well on Wall Street because it has low labor costs. So terrifyingly low in fact that a full-time Wal-Mart worker can not be self-sufficient. Then we as tax payers subsidize their living expenses. Costco, on the other hand, feels a “different obligation to its workers” and doesn’t do as well on Wall Street because it has high labor costs.

This struck me personally because I recognized a few key factors. As a full-time employee, I would like the highest reasonable wage for my work as well as good benefits. With the money I earn, I try to be wise and search for the lowest prices in my consumer role. And as a small-time investor, I of course like to see profits instead of losses. When I think about my tax dollars, I find it sad that we must subsidize the living expenses of Wal-Mart type workers, but I’m also a culprit because I occasionally shop at Wal-Mart! What is a person to do? Voila Winco. I am not going to pay for a Costco membership because I don’t consume very much and I don’t have much space for the large quantities, and yet I don’t like the way Wal-Mart allegedly treats its employees. I try to shop there as little as possible, and yet I won’t rule it out all together because it does meet a need for me sometimes. I can see how companies are caught in the middle these days between people like me as their employees, and people like me as their consumers. Enter globalization.

Friedman acknowledges that, “free trade won’t necessarily benefit every American, and that our society will have to help those who are harmed by it.” He still believes though, that overall our country will benefit by collaborating on a world stage instead of suffering impoverished and isolated. Although people like me will have to fight harder and work smarter to compete globally, the hope is that countries will focus domestically on better education for their citizens, to make the transition more successful to a global economy.

Book Report Part #1

2007-04-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

"The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. A brief history of the twenty-first century.

In this very interesting read, Friedman throws a lot of information at you and maintains a very fast pace while doing so. Perhaps that is an analogy for what he is describing in the book: how technology is "flattening" our world. We are blind-sided by new information at such a rate that we can barely keep up. This contributes somewhat to his scare tactics admission that soon the US won't be at the center of the world stage anymore, and we'll be scratching our heads, looking at all the successful "startup" countries, wondering what happened while we weren't paying attention.

In terms of education, I can appreciate the scare tactics. I'm likely looking ahead at a 30 year career in public school classrooms, and I would like to have an idea as to what's coming. It is my job to help prepare my students for the world in which we live, so it makes sense that I would pay attention to how the US is shaping up when compared with other countries. I am slowly trying to catch up with my late twenty-something peers when it comes to all the electronic toys that are out there. I got my first cell phone about two and a half years ago, and in that time, I've only had two actual phones. Neither one of them can take pictures. It was only 6 months ago that I started using an MP3 player. It took me a while to get used to it, but I really enjoy having it now. For me, (and I assume for many others) the thrill isn't in the technology itself, but in how it enhances my life. I am sitting at home on my laptop right now for instance, and I'm very glad we chose to buy the laptop over the desktop. I appreciate the mobility that my portable phone, my tiny MP3 player, and my laptop provide. It would be foolish to think that I'll be at the same level of capability regarding technology as my future students. (I'll be teaching high school after all). Rather than letting me feel old and out of date, (I'm only 27) I can come to terms with the fact that my students can learn from me (I'll be teaching French) and I can also learn from them, technology or otherwise. I think this is a valuable relationship to maintain.
Friedman states on page 15 that "Everyone has to focus on what exactly is their value-add." This is an important thought to remember myself, and to relay to my students. We all have talents, skills, and abilities which we've been given or which we've cultivated. To be successful in education and in life we should capitalize on those, and strengthen our unique abilities so as to be marketable on the world stage. As the world spins swiftly forward, it is foolish to be ignorant.

Friedman includes many wow stories in his chapters. One being that "American kids and parents are now turning to Indians for online tutoring." I honestly don't know what to do with that. What will happen to our friendly high school tutoring centers? Free and friendly people from your own community. I have to believe that at the moment it is only affluent families with the means and desire to get tutors from across the world for their children. As with anything though, I don't doubt that over time it will get cheaper and more readily available. Who knows, maybe I'll be an online tutor for some kid in another country who wants to learn American English!?!

Even though reading this book is a tad overwhelming at times because of its foreshadowing of an unfamiliar future, there is comfort in recognizing that if you're uneasy, "you're neither wrong nor alone." (p.48) I look forward to continuing with this book to see where it leads, and what ideas it can give me as a future educator and curious citizen.