Last night, I came across this video interview by Khan Academy founder Sal Khan of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. It comes from a series on Khan Academy of interviews on entrepreneurship, of which Friedman's life and perspective provide some interesting ideas.
Throughout the interview, but particularly toward the end, Friedman goes into some thoughts on the direction of education and labor in the future. Of these, two struck me as particularly interesting.
First, that with the merger of globalization and the IT-revolution, not only have the "ceilings" and "walls" fallen away in terms of employment and innovation, but so too has the "floor." Friedman describes this as incurring both costs and benefits -- that with increasing possibilities comes a certain degree of increased risk and instability. As discussed by Friedman in the video, that means that faster than ever jobs will either require more education to do, can be done by more people or robots/computers, or are disappearing altogether. It also means in Friedman parlance of a shift from "a world of defined benefits to one of defined contributions." Working x-number of years no longer ensures an easy retirement, just as attaining a four-year college degree no longer ensures gainful employment. Says Friedman, "everyone will have to pass the bar,"skill in employing knowledge will matter more than how it was acquired, and increasingly sophisticated methods will track one's exact contribution to just about everything.
This leads to the second idea, which stresses the importance of self-motivation. With the erosion of ceilings, walls, and floors, access to content and instruction has become increasingly open, accessible, and free. Given an Internet connection, one gains access to all the content and tools of learning. With self-motivation and time, the sky becomes the limit. Lacking self-motivation whilst awash in so many avenues for learning, Friedman suggests the best teachers and coaches of the future will be those who inspire rather than simply teach.
That I think is an excellent take-away from this interview. The notion of teachers and coaches inspiring others is nothing new, but bears remembering. Inspiration can invigorate, and wake us up as though from a long sleep. Sometimes it can improve optimism, and make what seemed a large hurdle once now seem smaller. I suspect some folks become more interested in challenges when inspired, or simply able to labor longer and more thoroughly than usual.
Whatever its effect on each of us at different times and as different people, a possibility-rich and secure-benefit-poor world will likely require more from people who can inspire others. For it is clear just from my own experience that making a thing easy and free does not ensure I will do or acquire it; as the saying goes, one can lead a horse to water, but not make him drink. If Friedman's notion of the globalization-IT-Revolution is accurate, than our world is increasingly becoming full of watering holes, requiring less effort than ever to lead us to them, but perhaps more to make us drink.
Current education policy in the United States as manifested in the Common Core Standards has lately shifted in the direction of hard skills and practical knowledge. Deep understanding of a few central ideas over wide-ranging cursory knowledge, and an emphasis on employing content rather than simply knowing it, seem well-conceived to help students in what Friedman sees as an increasingly flat, hyper-connected world. Implemented well, Common Core may do a great deal of good. But it bears remembering (and I think most people do) that for various reasons, not everyone is motivated to achieve what their talent and training make possible, even when the upside is potentially great; that our best teachers and coaches may not simply be the best educators, but also those who kindle metaphorical fires within their students.
It seems that the ability to inspire others is an important and useful skill, and will likely become even more important in a future where technology gives nearly everyone access to the highest quality tools for learning and skill development. No longer will the limiting factor be access, but motivation to access, and other factors such as available time, nutrition, etc.. And if the world is indeed moving from one "of defined benefit to one of defined contribution,"then inspiration and motivation seem likely foundations upon which it all rests. Rapid change requires rapid adaptation, and it could be we'll need inspirational figures to help us keep at it if and when our energy lags.
The possibilities of such a world seem quite great, with the potential for much invention and improved living standards for many. But it also seems likely to put considerable stress on societies generally, and a whole range of unique problems as a result may emerge. There will be benefits and costs, though in what proportion we can only guess. Yet for all the skills and adaptability we're likely to need, we would be remiss to exclude inspiration--and those who inspire-- as important elements in rapidly changing world, or such are my thoughts after listening to the interview with Thomas Friedman.
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