Chapter 19 Chapter 7 Necessary knowledge (1)

A friend once told Isidore, the Nobel Prize winner in physics.The rabbi asked him how he grew up.The rabbi replied that when he was a child, his mother would ask him about his studies every day after school.She's not interested in what her son learned in a day, but she always asks, "Did you ask a good question today?" Rabbi says, "Ask a good question and make me a scientist."—Unscrupulous Over the past two years, I've had the opportunity to travel the United States and talk about globalization and the flat world with people ranging from retirees in Palm Springs, California, to high school principals in Bethesda, Maryland, to suburban book clubs. parents.What strikes me deeply is that people from all walks of life across the country are particularly concerned about education and competition issues.If I were to sum it up, I would say this: Our parents used to think that they would be better off than their parents and their children would be better off than themselves.Yet we are now increasingly concerned that we may not retire as well off as our parents, and that our children may not be as well off as we are.It seems to me that everyone is looking for the trick that will save the life of the next generation from going downhill.I've been asked the same question twice, and people have said, "My daughter is learning Chinese. She's going to get something, right?"

"Well," I replied, "not quite." Why not at all?Because there is no trick at all.At times like these, I think the question we should have asked is: If the methods detailed in the previous chapter are enough to get individuals into the jobs that will put them into the emerging middle class, what kind of education will get our young Have the ability to undertake these tasks?As Princeton University economist Alan.As Brand puts it, "It is clear that the United States and other rich countries must reform their educational systems in order to produce the kinds of workers their societies need.  …

Overall, more education might be a good idea, especially since a more educated workforce is more flexible and more likely to adapt to a variety of nonroutine jobs and career changes.However, this is by no means a panacea... In the future, the way children are educated may be more important than the content of education. " In this chapter, I will focus on the information I gathered from employers and educators based on their responses to the following questions: What is the required knowledge?What kind of education do young people need to take on jobs that will allow them to join the emerging middle class?what should we do?The answer they gave me was not that there are specific lessons that must be taught to young people, but that certain patterns of technology and attitudes—which I summarize in four—are essential to anyone seeking to enter the emerging middle class. is crucial.

In the flat world you first need to develop the ability to "learn how to learn" - to constantly learn and teach yourself new ways of dealing with old things and new things.This is the ability that everyone should cultivate under the conditions of the new era.In this era, all or some jobs will be constantly challenged by digitization, automation and outsourcing, and new jobs and new industries will emerge faster and faster.In this world, standing out is not only about how much you know things, but also how you know them.Because what you know today can become obsolete faster than you can even imagine.

When I made this point in a speech in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, during the question period, a young man in a box raised his hand, introduced himself as a ninth grader, and asked, "F Mr. Riedman, if learning how to learn is so important, how did you learn how to learn? What classes should I take?" This is a very logical question.I hadn't thought much about it before then.So I improvised an answer, but I think I was giving it the right idea: "Go to your friends and ask them a question:" Who was your favorite teacher? 'List the names of these teachers, and go and pick their classes—whatever they teach. “Whether they teach Greek mythology, calculus, art history, or American literature, just take their classes. Because when I think back to my favorite teachers, I don’t remember exactly what they taught me, but I definitely I remember getting excited about what I learned. What sticks with me now is not what they taught, but the excitement of learning it. To learn how to learn, you have to love learning—or at least you should love learning— Because a lot of learning has to do with self-teaching. While some people seem to be born with this talent, most people develop it themselves or instill it in their teachers (or parents).

CQ+PQ>IQ This brings me to my second point - passion and curiosity.Having passion and curiosity is always a big plus in whatever you do.But it's worth repeating that in a flat world, passion and curiosity are far more important to jobs, success, fields of study, and even hobbies.Because in this world, you have more tools that allow you and your curiosity to get the best out of you. Doc.Doc Searls is a senior editor at Linux Magazine and one of America's most respected technology writers.In his review of the first edition of the book (April 28, 2005), he stated: "In the flat new world, educational opportunities are endless, even without the help of schools, governments, churches, or businesses.

Much of what you need to know can be found online -- especially if you're a technologist.Of course, the web isn't everywhere, but at least it exists where everything is flat, and that flatness is spreading rapidly... Of course, there are plenty of mediocre and dull people out there, there's no question about that.However, we can try to think about it this way: how most people were educated in the past.At that time, most of them received school education. From the beginning of the industrial age, school education had one main purpose: to train employees at various levels for the company. The company's organizational structure was in the shape of a pyramid, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top...In the industrial age , there are few career options other than farming and other relatively independent jobs, but today there are as many career options as there are people with access to the Internet. "Because of the above, I came to the following conclusion: In a flat world, IQ—intelligence quotient—still matters, but CQ and PQ—curiosity quotient and passion quotient—much more. I derived the equation CQ+PQ>IQ. A child with a passion for learning and a curiosity to discover will progress faster than a child with a higher IQ but a lack of passion. Because a child who is both curious and passionate is usually good at self-learning and Self-motivated. They can always learn how to learn, especially in a flat world where people can download and upload.

"Effort is important," Sears said, "but curiosity is more important. Nobody works harder than a curious kid." It seems to me that they could engrave this sentence on the entrance of every school in America: Nobody works harder than a curious kid. Some children are naturally curious, but for many who are not, the best way to instill a love of learning is either to instill a curiosity in them through teaching, or by exposing them to Using all the technology in the flat world to stimulate their inherent curiosity, the latter approach allows children to achieve autonomous learning in various ways.Let's take a look at this article from the New York Times Educational Life Supplement (April 24, 2005).The article is about Britney, a student at Arizona State University.

The story of Britney Schmiolt, who once got bored with the courses she was taking because the professors seemed to only care about leaving the class every day. She told the reporter of The New York Times: "At that time, I got A in all the courses, but I was never challenged, and I couldn't think about new things." But the natural science courses she took in the new semester changed her. All in all, the professors and teaching assistants who taught the course sparked her curiosity and ignited her passion. “I was lucky,” she says, “that the teachers really took the class seriously.” The result: a scientist was born.After a systematic study of several natural science courses, Schmidt was admitted to the graduate school of UCLA in planetary physics and the University of Chicago in astrochemistry.

If you don't have passion yourself, you can't ignite someone else's.Hillary.Hilarie Rooney is Layton, Montgomery County, Maryland.The principal of Laytonsville Elementary School, she came up to me once after a lecture and told me that her criteria for hiring teachers was simple: "It's about whether they love these kids," she said, because if you Without effective communication with children, you cannot effectively communicate the content of the textbook to children.If you don't have a feel for music, you'll never be able to play good music. "But if you love kids," she said, "and you show that affection, even if you don't really know what you're teaching, kids will learn because you motivate them. I can Give anyone how to teach, but I can't teach a person how to love children. And you can tell if a teacher loves students as soon as you walk into a classroom. Children in elementary school love their teachers, and good teachers will love his or her students equally, and they will motivate the children to try to do what the teacher asks them to do. The things students do are naturally good for themselves, but if they find that the teacher cares about what they learn, these children You won’t get bored of learning. That’s real learning.”

Can you spontaneously generate a passion quotient for learning a subject without the motivation of a teacher or parent?Sure, back in childhood, when you got your first firetruck toy, doll, doctor's kit, or astronaut helmet, you told everyone that when you grew up you'd be a firefighter, a fashion model, doctor or astronaut. This innocent passion for a particular job, without knowing the salary, the length of the hours, or the preparation required, is something you need to remember.We should all discover the existence of this feeling, "I'm doing this because I want to - I don't want to explain why".Simply put, you need to rediscover your inner firetruck.We all have this little train inside of us, and you'll know it when you spot it. Get along well with others Third, this is actually with Hillary.What Rowley said about teaching is pretty much the same thing—you have to like people. You need to be good at dealing with people.Having good interpersonal skills is a major advantage of people in the workplace, especially in a flat world.I don't know how to use this lore as part of classroom teaching, but it would be nice if someone could study it. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the flat world will emerge with a multitude of new types of intermediate jobs that require individualized frequent encounters with others—individualized frequent encounters that cannot be outsourced or automated, and Almost always a necessary part of the value chain.Alan.Brand sums it up best and most to the point: “Perhaps, as we’ve come to realize in recent years, interpersonal skills will become more valuable than computer skills. The weirdoes won’t be able to run the world. " Right Brain Things The fourth point we need to emphasize is how to develop your right brain as much as your left brain.daniel.Daniel Pink explains in A Whole New Mind: From the Information Age to the Conceptual Age: Scientists have long known that the neurological Mason-Dixon line connects our brains to Divided into two regions - left hemisphere and right hemisphere.But in the past 10 years, in (functional magnetic resonance imaging) Driven by MRI techniques, researchers have begun to more precisely discern the division of labor between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.The left hemisphere is responsible for sequencing, writing and analysis.The right hemisphere is responsible for paying attention to the surrounding environment, expressing emotion and deductive reasoning.Of course, the complexity of the human brain, which consists of 100 billion cells and 100 billion connections, is staggering.Almost everything we do requires both to work together, but the brain's architecture helps explain the contours of our time. For a long time, the left hemisphere of the brain has been considered an important organ that determines success in learning, work, business and other fields.The left hemisphere controls the math, logic, and analytical skills that SATs can measure and that CPAs need to use.But these abilities are necessary but not sufficient conditions for current personal development.In a world where the rise of outsourcing, deluge of data, and proliferation of options have heightened the importance of the right brain, artistic talent, empathy, orchestration, and the pursuit of excellence are all capabilities determined by the right brain. Pinker also points out that if you want to secure what I call an outsider from globalization—whose work “cannot be done faster by a computer or robot, and labor costs abroad can be lower”—you have to You need to constantly develop your right-brain functions, "for example, building good relationships instead of simple transactions, solving new challenges instead of dealing with daily problems, and organizing arrangements instead of just focusing on one point." We won't lose all our jobs tomorrow...but as the cost of communicating with the other side of the world drops to almost zero, as India (by 2010) becomes the country with the most English speakers, as developing countries As the number of skilled workers continues to increase, the careers of citizens of Western countries will change dramatically.If number crunching, chart reading, and code writing could be done cheaper abroad and sent instantly to customers over fiber-optic cables, jobs of all kinds would naturally move there. But these comparative advantages will only take away certain kinds of white-collar jobs—jobs that can be reduced to a set of rules, procedures, and instructions.That's why left-brain-controlled jobs like basic computer coding, accounting, legal research, and financial analysis are constantly moving across the ocean.At the same time, it reveals that home-grown companies and employees — programmers who can design entire systems, accountants who can act as financial advisors, bankers who are better at the art of the deal than Excel sheets — still have plenty of non-programming jobs cause of opportunity. "Now that left-brain tasks can be done cheaper abroad," Pinker said, "we Americans have to do right-brain tasks better." To me, that's the key One point: In the 20th century, machines proved they could replace human arms. In the 21st century, technology proves that machines can perform better than the left brain of humans—they can sort, simplify, and calculate better, faster, and more accurately than humans with the highest IQs. (Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov once lost a chess match against a computer...) In order to survive better in this era, we need to use it.high concept. (high concept) and.high touch. (high touch) talent to complement the already well-developed high-tech.High concept includes the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to identify features and opportunities, to write satisfying narratives and to create inventions, and high contact includes the ability to empathize, understand the subtleties of human interaction, The ability to find happiness in oneself and to bring happiness to others, and to go beyond the everyday in the search for purpose and meaning. Developing this high-concept, high-touch ability is no easy feat for anyone.To some, this may seem like an impossible goal.Actually, don't worry about it at all (or at least not that much).These most important abilities are basically uniquely human qualities.Our cave-dwelling ancestors on the savannahs of South America didn't know how to populate numbers into spreadsheets or troubleshoot errors in programming code. But they are telling stories, empathizing and inventing.These abilities have always been part of human nature.It's just that in the information age, many of our high-concept, high-touch natures have atrophied like muscles.The challenge now is to bring them back. But how do you develop the skills of the right brain?You should be doing things you are passionate about - or at least things you love - because in doing them, your right brain will invisibly generate something that cannot easily be duplicated, automated or outsourced .As Pinker put it: "Looking at it now, the most important competencies are often what people do intrinsically motivated to do. Few people become accountants because of intrinsic motivation, but this motivation is what drives people to become accountants." A key factor for creators, empaths, designers, storytellers, lawyers and consultants. There will be accountants painting watercolors in the garage on weekends and lawyers writing movie scripts. But I can assure you that no sculptor has fun doing someone else's taxes on weekends.In other words, there is more and more overlap between what people do as a hobby and what they do for financial gain. "Pink thus concludes that when you hear your parents or college commencement speakers tell you to 'do something you love,' they're not trying to please you, they're teaching you survival strategies . The tuba and the test tube Now let's take a step back and look at the problem.If the work of the emerging middle class requires you to be an excellent collaborator, operator, adaptor, interpreter, synthesizer, model builder, localizer, or individuator, and requires you to learn how to learn, you will have Curiosity and enthusiasm, working well with others and developing right-brain skills, what specific demands do these place on education? I am not an educator, so I can only speak with great humility on this subject.What I can report as a reporter, though, is that there are many real educators who have been grappling with this issue.I am deeply moved by the amount of experimentation that has been done by many universities in order to design "the right education" for the emerging middle class. For better illustration, I'll focus on one university—the George Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Wayne.Crawford (G. Wayne Clough) is the president of the university.He says rethinking education in a flat world is out of necessity.Crawford, who took over as principal in 1994, told me: "I came to this school in the 1960s as a terrified freshman. They did military drills and told us, 'Look at your left, look at your On the right, only one of you will graduate'." The admissions system at George Institute of Technology was not as strict as it is today, but it adopted the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest and was based entirely on academic performance.As Crawford puts it, it was a very grim social and learning environment—no fun at all.Even in the mid-1990s, the school's graduation rate was only 65%. Many students failed to complete their studies mainly because they found the curriculum and learning environment dull, and they believed that the school did not focus on students' academic performance. Take success seriously. When Crawford took office as president, his view was that the United States desperately needed more outstanding scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, so his school could not afford the cost of 1/3 of the students not graduating.He recognized that only by providing the right education, not just more education, "will more students apply to the school and more students graduate". Crawford reflects on George Tech's approach to scholarship by reflecting on his own experiences as an engineer.He sensed that the best engineers he had worked with over the years were not the best engineering students. "They know how to think creatively," he said. "They may not have been the best students in calculus equations, but they were the best students in defining the equations they were working on. . people, there is something invisible about them.” As Crawford's tenure increased, he noticed that "a lot of talented students were not interested in what they were learning in the classroom, but in something creative"—filmmaking, musicmaking, or whatever. unusual hobby. "After talking to these students, I found that they were very interesting people. I started thinking, 'Wouldn't it be a good thing to have more of these types of students on campus? It would make the campus more interesting and help For those students who have a single interest in all-round development'." So from the late 1990s, Crawford gradually changed the admissions policy of George Institute of Technology. He told the admissions office to focus on recruiting engineering students who could play an instrument, participate in choir or other team activities. “The reason for this is that people with other interests tend to be better communicators, more gregarious, more likely to seek help when they need it, willing to help others, and able to see the big picture. . Things come together,” says Crawford, and the result: Today more than 50 percent of George Tech’s incoming students play an instrument or are in some type of musical group—so much so that Crawford’s biggest challenge now is how to More concert halls were built on campus."I created a monster," he joked, and he created more graduates.The graduation rate has risen from 65% when he took over as president to 76% in 2005. They are different types of graduates. “The response from the students has also been fantastic,” Crawford said, “the number of students taking the music class has grown tremendously. We used to have almost no chamber choirs, now we have more than a dozen.Our school also didn't have a chamber band (a small band) in the past, now we have five.We also have a computer music synthesis team, a jazz team, and a virtual robotic drummer. "Virtual robot drummers - only at this kind of technical university! At the same time, Crawford told me, the George Institute of Technology is also forming big bands (such as marching bands and symphony orchestras), and the number of participants and the size of the formation are very impressive.Small groups such as choral clubs have also proliferated.Guys, we're talking about George Tech, not Juilliard band. “There are so many students looking for opportunities to get involved,” Crawford added, “that we had to convert a dilapidated middle school building on campus into our music building, and an old church hall as some singing regiment training ground. We've also created more casual venues for students to exercise their talents, such as the stage in the new student center. "Crawford's efforts to fill George Tech with singing gained outside support in 1996 when the school was chosen as the Olympic Village to provide a resting place for athletes competing in the Atlanta Olympics. George Tech's band director was chosen Conducted the band for the Atlanta Olympics. After the games, George Tech was told to buy half-price all the instruments used by the band members during the games. "So we doubled the size of the band overnight," Crawford said. , "That's one of the driving forces that keeps us on track.It was awesome.Because of this opportunity, our marching band now has 24 tubas. Very few schools have 24 tubas, so you can check it out the next time you watch a bowling game. " Few principals of major technical universities show off their tuba by praising their test tube equipment.But Crawford has reason to do so, because, I guess, by filling George Tech with singing—by adding user-friendly features to the undergraduate system, and by making it easier for its students to access overseas education—it Not only have more engineers been trained, but more engineers are needed by the society. “People who play an instrument or are in a band are generally more social—they’re not just working,” says Crawford, who adds that they’re more able to see the big picture, see the big picture, and integrate different fields relevant knowledge.For example, engineers with an understanding of photonics (the conversion of sunlight into electricity) will be among the most sought-after talents. This requires students to have received relevant training in basic engineering, chemical engineering, and electrical engineering.The executive of a large engineering firm recently told Crawford, "Don't send me engineers who just run computers to get the job done. I'm going to outsource that kind of work to India. What I need are adaptable engineers— — they can think across disciplines.” The School of Computing at The George Institute of Technology has taken these strategies and translated them into specific courses.