Tom Friedman...Again

If you've been reading, you know my love-hate relationship with Tom Friedman.  This week his column in the NYT is very thought provoking.  You can read it here.  The title is "The Professor's Big Stage".  It's all about the access to education.  And how today's universities better rethink themselves for the future.  A couple of really good passages stuck with me.

"Institutions of higher learning must move, as the historian Walter Russell Mead puts it, from a model of “time served” to a model of “stuff learned.” Because increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares, and will only pay for, what you can do with what you know. And therefore it will not pay for a C+ in chemistry, just because your state college considers that a passing grade and was willing to give you a diploma that says so. We’re moving to a more competency-based world where there will be less interest in how you acquired the competency — in an online course, at a four-year-college or in a company-administered class — and more demand to prove that you mastered the competency."

 And this,

"There is still huge value in the residential college experience and the teacher-student and student-student interactions it facilitates. But to thrive, universities will have to nurture even more of those unique experiences while blending in technology to improve education outcomes in measurable ways at lower costs. We still need more research on what works, but standing still is not an option."

And finally,

"Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor and expert on disruptive innovation, gave a compelling talk about how much today’s traditional university has in common with General Motors of the 1960s, just before Toyota used a technology breakthrough to come from nowhere and topple G.M. Christensen noted that Harvard Business School doesn’t teach entry-level accounting anymore, because there is a professor out at Brigham Young University whose online accounting course “is just so good” that Harvard students use that instead. When outstanding becomes so easily available, average is over." 

I love that final sentence..."When outstanding becomes so easily available, average is over".  Think about that.  The world is shrinking.  The need to excel is increasing.  Competition is thriving.  To succeed, kids today will have to work harder and be smarter.  Maybe that's always been the case.  Every generation needs to be smarter and work harder.  But with the world shrinking and technology accelerating...excellence becomes harder to attain.  I think about that as my Grandkids age (too fast).

I also just returned from an international trip, this time to Asia.  As is always the case, I return struck by how much Americans can become cloistered, thinking they are the center of the universe.  Well...the world is shrinking every day.  And our kids are going to have to run to stay even.  The other thing that strikes me whenever I travel internationally is what I say to my kids and anyone else who will listen...teach your kids or have your kids taught a language.  Preferably Chinese or Japanese or Arabic. That's something that will make a difference.