Greetings:
Friedman has four criteria for how education might prepare people for living in a flat world. Not a single one of them are based on knowing a specific area of study (not to say this is not important, it’s just not the emphasis). He places emphasis on HOW TO LEARN. This was one of the more poignant points for me. One of the questions I sometimes ask my students (now I think I should always ask it) is for them to tell me how they learn. If they don’t know I tell them they need to find out pretty quickly!
The first criterion for an educational foundation in a flat world is Learning How To Learn.
So what does it mean to learn how to learn? A colleague recently shared with me that he didn’t learn how to learn until college. We both agreed that is a bit too late. However, just because it’s late doesn’t mean helping students learn how to learn is not our domain. It is.
This “Learning how to Learn” idea came up recently at this year’s “Future of the Black Community in Grand Rapids” an annual dialogue hosted by several young community leaders. A young local high school student asked the panel of seasoned community members the following question:You say students don’t want to learn, but why can’t learning be more interesting and in a place where kids wanted to become excited about learning? I want to wake up and want to go to school.
The response he got left me cold. He was told that schools can’t tailor themselves for every student and at some point students have to learn how to conform because there are goals schools must meet.
As I think about what the young man said, I truly believe his question was one of teaching people how to learn thereby getting them invested and excited about learning (my comment was going to be something like that but I didn’t get to give them because the dialogue ran quite over its time).
Friedman’s response to the 9th grader who asked him a similar question was to take classes with teachers who have a passion for teaching. The course subject matter is secondary because we need to focus on knowing how to learn and developing a passion (or at least a habit) for learning.
The second criterion Friedman gives is to be born with or develop a passion for learning—develop your Curiosity quotient (CQ) and Passion quotient (PQ). A high IQ alone does not translate into success (it never has and Friedman fries this idea more in a flat world context).
If you want to see more of my (Murslata's) thoughts about Friedman's book, go to resources (right side of screen) and click on "The Life Academic" I'm pretty much putting the bulk of my responses there because I don't want to be hoggish with this blog space.
Our team members are busy preparing for CQIN! Judy Stark and Andy Bowne have put together their presentation on GRCC's "Continuum of Learning." You'll find their slides, statement and graphics under "Resources." The Powerpoint slides are about 5MB. You may want to download the PDF or view the HTML version.
