Imagine a billion educated minds, and what they might be capable of. Now imagine those minds belonging to people whose desire for discovery is matched only by their hunger for prosperity -- the kind of hunger that can only be born out of grinding poverty. Picture all those minds growing up and learning in Asia, eastern Europe, South America and Africa. Think about just how different the world will be when those minds turn their attention from the lessons of the past to the possibilities of the future. Now stop imagining, because that's the world we'll be living in within 30 years.
Some of the same themes as in The World is Flat. If you read the entire article (it's short), it discusses the complacency of the "developed" world. "Complacency" is exactly the word I would use to describe many of our students - and teachers. That's one of the reasons I really want all of you to read The World is Flat. Again, not necessarily so that you'll agree with everything in the book, but so that we get outside of our "cocoon" of school and look at the bigger picture. I think it's really hard for those of us who've always known a world in which the U.S. is dominant, and in which change has been relatively slow and incremental. I know it hasn't felt slow and incremental to us, but compared to the pace of change now, it was almost glacial.
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