Flat schools for a flat world

Thomas Friedman makes an strong argument in The World is Flat; A Brief history of the Twenty-first Century that the world is now so interconnected by the internet and globalization that all of the economic assumptions of the past are in flux. America will need, in this new economic world, to redefine itself as a competitor in the global marketplace and to re-define itself as the nation of hope.

Friedman argues that once supply chains opened around the world, manufacturing work flowed to where it could be done the cheapest. Once fiber-optic cable was strung around the planet, data entry work flowed to where it could be done correctly at the lowest cost. And now that the infrastructure is in place, and people around the world are learning how to use it, creative and intellectual work is flowing to where it can be done best.

To compete in this global economy, people will have to be willing to work for less than anyone else in the world, do a better job than anyone else in the world, or be more imaginative than anyone else in the world.

In the United States, we do not have schools to prepare our children for any of these options. To work for less than someone in the most recent developing nation, young people would need to know how to survive with very little money in one of the most expensive economies on the planet. To do a better job than someone working day and night to build a niche in the worldwide market, students would need to develop skills of endurance, tenacity, and commitment. To be more imaginative than people creating new businesses in just emerging markets, our graduates will need to have practiced taking risks, asking questions, accepting ambiguity, and tolerating disagreement.

Right now, American schools do none of this well. Our current emphasis on high-stakes testing is not helping. The way it is playing out in most states is to teach kids to get just enough right answers to predetermined questions to match some arbitrary score. Effort is not factored in. Ambiguity is edited out. Creativity is not sought or measured.

I think we need to get testing right. First, let's make better tests. Massachusetts has a pretty good test. Second, let's set the passing grades at higher levels, commensurate with the levels achieved by the best students in the world. Third, let's teach the kids what they need to know in order to reach those levels.

But we need more, because getting testing right will not lead young people toward the habits of mind they'll need to use and trust their imaginations. For that, we'll need different schools, flat schools, where the adults trust the children to think, to speak their minds, to question, to be wrong for a while, to show what they know in ways that make sense to them.

Some few schools have started this work. North Star Academy in Newark is one. We need more.