What Knowledge is the Most Worth:Education for the Global Economy

Our Challenges Today…

The emergence of two new worlds

Local-Physical

Virtual

Global

Local-Physical

what is the global world?

As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.

Marshall McLuhan, 1964

“Honey,” I confided, “I think the world is flat.”

Thomas Friedman, 2005

By almost any economically relevant metric, distances have shrunk considerably in recent decades.

[T]he shrinking globe has been a major source of the powerful wave of worldwide economic integration and increased economic interdependence that we are currently experiencing. But the full implications of these developments for all aspects of our lives will not be known for many years.

--Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the U. S. Federal Reserve 2006

Death of Distance

GlobalIntegration

Goods

People

Money

GlobalFree Flow

Challenge One: Jobs

When I was growing up, my parents told me, “Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.” I tell my daughters, “Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.”

---Thomas Friedman, 2005

International Division of Labor

The eBay Phenomenon: Expanded Market

The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of the 2006 World Cup — including all of the matches — is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.

Only 11 countries have made it to the final match, and only seven have won.

New Professions

Demand for Translators and Interpreters Rises in USA

The expansion of global trade and the increase in US foreign language speakers should lead to a 26% increase in the translation industry by 2014.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site.

Today, Indian engineers make $7,500 a year against $45,000 for an American engineer with the same qualifications. If we succeed in matching the very high levels of mastery of mathematics and science of these Indian engineers — an enormous challenge for this country — why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work? They would be willing to do that only if we could offer something that the Chinese and Indians, and others, cannot. --New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (2007). Tough Choices or Tougher Times

Therefore we need to move into niche areas where they will not be able to completely replace us for quite some time.

---Lee Kuan Yew, 2007

In the global economy, our student’s careers are global. Where can they find employment depends on their niche talents.

Daniel H. Pink (2005).A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age

A Whole New Mind

Information Age: L-Directed Thinking

– Sequential– Literal– Functional– Textual– Analytic Conceptual Age:

R-Directed Thinking– Simultaneous– Metaphorical– Aesthetic– Contextual– Synthetic

AsiaAutomationAbundance

Essential Aptitudes in the Conceptual Age

• Design• Story• Symphony• Empathy• Play• Meaning.

Challenge Two: Getting Along

McDonaldization and Starbucks in the Forbidden City: Global Consumerism

Our students are affected by global forces, cultural clashes, and different value systems.

Challenge Three: Mother Earth

Climate Change and the Bird Flu: Global Elephant in the Local Bedroom

The predicted effects of climate change over the coming decades include extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea level rise, retreating glaciers, habitat shifts, and the increased spread of life-threatening diseases. These conditions have the potential to disrupt our way of life and to force changes in the way we keep ourselves safe and secure. . . Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states.... The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide, and the growth of terrorism. The CNA Corporation, 2007

Global Citizenship

The completely untraveled person will view all foreigners as the savage regards a member of another herd. But the man who has traveled, or who has studied international politics, will have discovered that, if his herd is to prosper, it must, to some degree, become amalgamated with other herds.

--Bertrand Russell, 1950

•83 percent could not locate Afghanistan;•25 percent of college-bound high school students could not name the ocean between California and Asia;•80 percent did not know that India is the world’s largest democracy;•37 percent could not locate China on a map of Asia and the Middle East; and•56 percent could not find India, despite the fact that China and India are the world’s most populous countries, and major emerging markets. (Committee for Economic Development, 2006)

“The FBI did not dedicate sufficient resources to the surveillance and translation needs of counter-terrorism agents. It lacked sufficient translators proficient in Arabic and other key languages, resulting in a significant backlog of un-translated intercepts,” according to the 9/11 Commission.

“Part of the reason for our difficulty is that we simply don’t have enough competent speakers of Arabic with credible policy context and an ability to connect with the intended audience so they will at least listen to what we are trying to say and give us a hearing.” (Committee for Economic Development, 2006)

“Compared to their counterparts from universities in other parts of the world, U.S. students are ‘strong technically’ but ‘shortchanged’ in cross-cultural experience and ‘linguistically deprived.’”

American companies lose an estimated $2 billion a year due to inadequate cross-cultural guidance for their employees in multicultural situations. A 2002 survey of large U.S. corporations found that nearly 30 percent of the companies believed they had failed to exploit fully their international business opportunities due to insufficient personnel with international skills. Microsoft’s Windows95 was banned by Indian because its Time Zone map put the region of Kashmir outside the boundaries of India. (Committee for Economic Development, 2006)

Are we preparing citizens for the globalized world?

• Unique talents• Creativity, Imagination, and Passion• Cross-cultural competencies

– Understanding the globe– Foreign languages– Understanding other cultures

• Global responsibilities

The Virtual

Virtual marriage & 2nd Life: Socializing virtually

Anshe Chung has become the first online personality to achieve a net worth exceeding one million US dollars from profits entirely earned inside a virtual world.

--Business Week, May, 2006

Gold-farming and digital produce: Digital farmers market

Real-money trade of virtual items (RMT)“I estimate the total worldwide RMT volume to reach 2,090M”Virtual Economy Research Network:

http://virtual-economy.org/blog/how_big_is_the_rmt_market_anyw

YouTube and podcasting: Running your own show

With the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006[4] and a news story claiming 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006,[5] the site reportedly attracts new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day.

Currently staffed by 67 employees,[1] the company was named TIME magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006.[2] In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google's stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.[3]

Podcast Users Expected To Reach 60 Million In Five Years The number of podcast users in the United States is expected to increase nearly 15 fold over the next five years, a research group says. –Information Week, May 15, 2005

What can an 18 year old do?

Hackers and Thieves: Morality and Crimes in CyberSpace

In the UK, Sasser forced staff at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to return to manual map reading because computer systems were made unusable by the worm.

Check-in for some British Airways flights was also delayed thanks to Sasser.

Around the world, the Australian Railcorp trains stopped running because computer problems caused by Sasser made it impossible for drivers to talk to signalmen.

In Taiwan, more than 400 branches of the post office were forced to use pen and paper because Sasser crashed desktop PCs.

Anti-virus firm Sophos estimates that 70% of all the virus infections in the first half of 2004 could be blamed on Mr Jaschan's creations.

Statistics gathered by Sophos show that in the first six months of 2005 there were four variants of Netsky in the top 10 viruses and they accounted for 25.5% of all infections. Unlike many other viruses, Sasser made its way from

Digital Citizenship

• Living in the digital world– Consumers– Citizens– Community leaders

• Making a living in the digital world– Digital workers– Global workers

• (Re)Creating the digital world– Innovators– Entrepreneurs

Fool’s Gold: Why and How the Current Education

Reform Efforts Destroy Our Children’s Future

Despite the billions of dollars being spent on ‘education reform’ since 1983, the U.S. has implemented none of the meaningful recommendations of the 1983 report and as a result has seen no real improvements to our math or science education system.

----Robert Compton,2008, creator and executive producer of the documentary Two Million Minutes. Source: http://www.2mminutes.com/pressblog6.htmlTwo decades later, A Nation at Risk remains significant in terms of setting the debate and ushering in an era of reform in education, but its goals have not yet been realized. The changes wrought by twenty years of task forces, committees, and study groups have not produced the hoped-for improvement in student achievement. Few of the commission's recommendations were properly implemented, and many of those that were proved too timid to bring about effective educational reform.

--Diane Ravitch 2003Source: http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/dailyreport/archive/2848976.html

U.S. treading water in reading Bloomberg News ServiceRussia, Hong Kong and Singapore shot to the top of 45 countries and provinces participating in a fourth-grade reading test, while England fell below the United States, according to results released yesterday. (Honolulu Advertiser, November 29, 2007)

U.S. Students Fall Short in Math and Science

Teenagers in a majority of industrialized nations taking part in a leading international exam showed greater scientific understanding than students in the United States—and they far surpassed their American peers in mathematics. (Education Week, December 4, 2007)

The Puzzle

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

UnitedStates

Japan Korea China India Russia

2007-2008 Global Competitiveness Index

United States

Japan

Korea

China

India

Russia

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gcr_2007/gcr2007_rankings.pdf

[China 2002]

In December 2002, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a policy designed to reform assessment and evaluation in elementary and secondary schools. This document, entitled Ministry of Education’s Notice Regarding Furthering the Reform of Evaluation and Assessment Systems in Elementary and Secondary Schools, calls for alternative assessments that go beyond simply testing academic knowledge. It specifically forbids ranking school districts, schools, or individual students based on test results or making test results public. [China 2005]High school curriculum reform

Among the problems targeted by the reforms: •Overemphasis on knowledge transmission•Too many required and uniform courses, which limited students’ individual development •Too much overlapping content, resulting in excessive coursework burden on students•Overemphasis on the value of individual discipline, resulting in too little interdisciplinary and social integration Remedies:•Credit system•More electives, fewer required courses•Local subjects/school based curriculum•Integrated studies•New subjects (art, environment, technology, etc)

Japan

• Since 2001, Japan has been working to implement its Education Plan for the 21st Century, which has three major objectives:

• The first is “enhancing emotional education,” that is, cultivating students as emotionally well-rounded human beings.

• The second objective is “realizing a school system that helps children develop their individuality and gives them diverse choices” by moving towards a diverse, flexible educational system that encourages individuality and cultivates creativity.

• The third is “promoting a system in which the school’s autonomy is respected” through decentralizing educational administration, enhancing local autonomy, and enabling independent self-management at the school level. (Iwao, 2000)

[Korea 2000]

Revised 7th National Curriculum

The ultimate goal is to cultivate creative, autonomous, and self-driven human resources who will lead the era's developments in information, knowledge and globalisation. •Promote fundamental and basic education that fosters sound human beings and nurtures creativity •Help students build self-leading capacity so that they well meet the challenges of today's globalisation and information development • Implement learner-oriented education that suits the students' capability, aptitude and career development needs • Ensure expanded autonomy for the local community and schools in curriculum planning and operation.

Singapore

Since 1997, Singapore another frequent high flyer in international comparative studies, has engaged in a major curriculum reform initiative. Entitled Thinking Schools, Learning Nation, this initiative aims to develop all students into active learners with critical thinking skills and to develop a creative and critical thinking culture within schools. Its key strategies include:

• The explicit teaching of critical and creative thinking skills; • The reduction of subject content;• The revision of assessment modes; and; • A greater emphasis on processes instead of on outcomes when

appraising schools.• In 2005, the Ministry of Education in Singapore released another

major policy document Nurturing Every Child: Flexibility and Diversity in Singapore Schools, which called for a more varied curriculum, a focus on learning rather than teaching, and more autonomy for schools and teachers (Ministry of Education, 2005).

Why?

What Knowledge is of Most Worth?

Yong Zhao, Ph. DUniversity Distinguished Professor

Director, US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence

College of EducationExecutive Director, Confucius Institute

Michigan State Universityzhaoyo@msu.edu

Test scores in math?

The First International Mathematics Study (FIMS)

• Year data collected: 1964• Target Population: 13 year olds• Participating Countries: Australia,

Belgium, England, Finland, France, Germany (FRG), Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden, United States.

• US finished second to last (Sweden)

Jefferson told us where to look to see if a nation is a success.He did not say to look at test scores. Instead, he said to lookat “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

--Keith Baker (2007)

40 years later: Wealth

FIMS scores in 1964 correlate at r = -0.48 with 2002 PPP-GDP. In short, the higher a nation’s test score 40 years ago, the worse its economic performance on this measure of national wealth.

40 years later: Rate of Growth

The nations that scored better than the U.S. in 1964 had an average economic growth rate for the decade 1992-2002 of 2.5%; the growth rate for the U.S. during that decade was 3.3%. The average economic growth rate for the decade 1992-2002 correlates with FIMS at r = -0.24. Like the generation of wealth, the rate of economic growth for nations improved as test scores dropped.

40 years later: Productivity

There is no relationship between FIMS scores and hourly output, r = -.03. In 2004, the average hourly output of those nations that outscored the U.S. in 1964 was 3.4% lower than U.S. productivity, though the three nations with higher hourly output all had higher test scores than the U.S.

40 years later: Quality of Life

The average rank on the Quality of Life Index for nations that scored above the U.S. on FIMS was 10.8. The U.S. ranked seventh (lower numbers

are better). FIMS scores correlated with Quality of Life at r = -0.57.

40 years later: Democracy

On the Economy Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy, those nations that scored below the median on FIMS have a higher average rank on achieving democracy (9.8) than do the nations that scored above the median (18). Once again, the U.S. scored higher on attaining democracy than did nations with higher 1964 test scores.

40 years later: Livability

An alternative to the Quality of Life Index, the Most Livable Countries Index, shows

that six of the nine countries that scored higher on FIMS than the U.S. are worse places to live. Livability correlates with FIMS scores at r = -.49.

40 years later: Creativity

The number of patents issued in 2004 is one indicator of how creative the generation of students tested in 1964 turned out to be. The average number of patents per million people for the nations with FIMS scores higher than the U.S. is 127. America clobbered the world on creativity, with 326 patents per million people. However, FIMS scores do correlate with the number of patents issued: r = .13 with the U.S. and r= .49 without the U.S.

Baker, Keith (2007). Are International Tests Worth Anything? Kappan, October, 2007

Or test scores in anything?

One of psychology’s open secrets is the relative inability of grades, IQ, or SAT scores, despite their popular mystique, to predict unerringly who will succeed in life. . . At best, IQ contributes about 20 percent to the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80 percent to other forces.

---Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

What made the difference?

Why Cannot Asians think?Strengths and Weaknesses of East Asian Education

Knowledge-centeredCentralizedDiscipline-basedOutcome-oriented

Why Cannot Johnny Add?Strengths and Weaknesses of

American Education

Child-centeredDecentralized Activity-based

Process-oriented

Hawaii = Edutopia ?The Fallacy of Learning from Each Other

By the way

bureaucratization of education

kills creativity

discrimination

narrows curriculumcheating

demoralization

Campbell’s Law

The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor.

Linguistic Logic

MusicalKinaesthetic

Child A

Child B

Child C

Child D

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Albert Einstein

A ‘Rainbow’ Approach to Admissions

This year, applicants to Tufts will also have the option of answering very different kinds of questions. They might be asked to write a short story to fit the title “Confessions of a Middle School Bully” or “The End of MTV.” They might be asked to write an essay imagining what the world would have been like had Rosa Parks given up her seat on the bus or had John Paul I lived longer than a month as pope. Or they could create an advertisement or ad campaign for a product that doesn’t exist. Other exercises might be timed and prompted by videos. They could watch a film about a situation they might face in college — such as going to a professor to ask for a recommendation only to realize that the professor doesn’t know you — and write a short piece about what they would do. --Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2006

Be informed of changes.

Model attitudes and behaviors.

Lead changes in curriculum, policy, and events in your schools.

Advocate changes in the state and the nation.

My challenge to you:

And I pledge to return education to public education, to protect the imagination and curiosity of all children, to keep their passion for learning burning, to help them become good citizens, not excellent test takers.

Some suggestions

• The Basic Version• The Silver Version• The Gold Version• The Platinum Version

The Basic

• Add foreign languages• Add culture content• International experiences for

educators• Digital citizenship clubs

The Silver

• Start foreign languages from primary grades

• Put global/cultural content in social studies

• Develop student exchange programs• Offer international experiences for

teachers• Virtual international projects

The Gold

• Silver + • Ignore NCLB• Broaden the curriculum (more arts,

music, technology, design etc)• Develop international partner schools• Engage in teacher exchanges • Digital media courses

The Platinum

• Gold +• Personalize student learning• Online learning• Immersion programs all the way

What is MSU doing to help?

• Confucius Institute• US-China Center• Internationalizing Teacher Education

Are you ready to lead with courage and vision?