The World is Flat part 2

The World is Flat
The second part of the book “The World Is Flat” is equally as interesting as the first part. Mr. Friedman the author talks about the “triple convergence” along with so many things but I just want to touch on a few that directly pertain to us as teachers and to our students. One is the fact that in order to stay competitive in both research and our students as it pertains to the job market that we need to direct our children and our students to become more technology savvy and to encourage a few more of our students to become scientists and mathematicians. He also talks about the CQ + PQ > IQ concept.
The triple convergence the first being collaboration where the web has allowed individuals, groups, universities and companies to come together and mutually benefit from each other for the purpose of innovation, education, production, research, entertainment etc. He used the example where Southwest airlines teamed up with us the consumer to be able to purchase and download our own tickets and this mutually benefits us by not having to take our precious time waiting in line to get our tickets and boarding passes and benefits the airlines because this cuts down on the need for employees to do this job. Convergence two, the introduction of the computer to speed up processes, but this couldn’t happen until employees learned how to use the various programs and the manufacturers had to update their plants in order to keep up with the increase in orders. The third convergence was the entering in of other countries who now had more access and could be more competitive with the U.S. Students in India were getting more educated and could take over jobs in their country that would be considered low wage here in the U.S. but were ok wages in India.
The next topic discussed in the book involved the fact that a lot of U.S. jobs are being taken away because of outsourcing to other countries. But in replacement we have new companies starting up here in the states that will offer employees new opportunities to come work for these companies. Friedman talks about we are also inventing or producing new items so there is a constant new opportunity for students to find work here in the U.S... The Internet has streamlined our jobs so that more people can do research and then this leaves more time for action on that research.
Where we as teachers come in to play is that we need to be encouraging our students both male and female to become interested in the math and sciences so that we can have our own researchers and scientists here in America who can compete with people of other countries as far as inventions upgrading etc. that is mainly taking place in other countries like Russia, China and India. It use to be the big cities were big employers of manufacturing plants that people could work at, now they are being replace by big medical facilities and technology hub our students have to be prepared to have the skills and knowledge to work in these new companies or else the jobs will go to students from other countries who have been working on those skills. Our technology and other inventions have been on a steady decline; where as the other countries are on a steady climb to the top. We need to be the ones as Steve Jobs of Apple computer puts it “to invent the next new thing” which in this case he was referring to the iPod, and not wait for our competitor companies to beat us to the punch.
The CQ + PQ > IQ concept stands for curiosity + passion for learning is greater than intellect. Our students have to have a certain amount of curiosity and passion to be lifelong learners and not just be very intelligent or great students. Students now more than ever need to want to discover new things and be self-educators and self-motivators so that they are just relying on what their teachers and parents are teaching them. So we as teachers need to develop that burning desire in our student’s not just complacency to just get s job.