By Larry Marsh, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist 2009
A nation has an infinite number of possible histories. There is only one history that happened, and many histories that didn't happen. If America is to lead the world throughout the 21st century and beyond, we must grasp the full implication of the Internet now and fundamentally change our education system.
Toward the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century there were two nations in the Western Hemisphere that were poised to be great world leaders. They had roughly the same wealth in national resources and GDP per person, and the same number of people with about the same level of education.
One of them made it, and the other one didn't. What happened to our competitor and why were we so successful? Were we just lucky?
In the late 1800s and early 1900s two countries looked to great broad plains extending far to the west until reaching high distant mountains. It was a vast unexplored territory just as the Internet now seems to our students and teachers. These two countries were among the top ten richest countries in the world with millions of immigrants pouring in. It was not clear if Argentina would leave the United States far in the dust or vice versa.
The key to our success can be summed up in one word: empowerment. Both Argentina and the US had powerful elites that controlled their economies. As their most energetic and adventurous people moved westward the US empowered its people by giving out small parcels of land while Argentina gave its land to its elite.
We now face a critical point in human history. Access to the Internet is spreading rapidly throughout the world. Even poor people who never had access to anything beyond their isolated village have suddenly gained access to the Internet.
The country that grasps the full implications of the Internet for the empowerment of its citizens will lead in the 21st century and beyond. So far it does not look so good for the United States. We are still maintaining our Little-House-on-the-Prairie approach to education.
Google Books changes everything. Teachers are no longer the source of knowledge. The Internet is. We no longer have to restrict ourselves to a single textbook. Google Books is our textbook. Don’t teach health; teach how to create your own personal health strategy. Instead of teaching how to acquire wealth, teach how to develop your own individual wealth strategy. Now more than ever our students need motivation and inspiration, and, above all, empowerment.
It all starts in Baby College. Baby College operates in Harlem and elsewhere. Social science research has revealed the enormous power of empowerment. Baby College teaches parents how to empower their children. Babies and young children naturally want to explore and experiment. It’s one thing if your child is about to catch fire or fall off a cliff, but is it really necessary to keep saying: “don’t touch this” or “don’t do that”? The natural inclination of children to explore is too often suppressed in childhood.
Everything is exciting and sometimes scary to a baby because it is new and unknown. Once all the basics are learned, they want to continue with the excitement of learning so they make up fantasy worlds where there are still new and unexpected things to learn. Teachers must encourage exploration and experimentation on the Internet. Empower children to get to know other people in other cultures with different ideas.
Too often we get intellectually lazy as we mature and lock into left-wing and right-wing platitudes instead of expending the mental energy to examine each new proposal on its merits. Empowering our children to think for themselves and to continue to explore the ever changing world of ideas can help them avoid this mental atrophy. It’s not just China; we could find ourselves left behind by Brazil and many other countries if we don’t wake up soon and change our approach to education.
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Also see:
Flynn Effect, IQ scores and SAT scores: Are our children smarter than we are?
Spend some of that $650 million for education on video games
Espresso Book Machine offers hot book with your coffee
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For more on the comparative history of Argentina and the United States, see the new book: "False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World" by Alan Beattie.
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Here is another comparison Mr. Marsh. When the American settlers headed West they displaced the First Nations peoples, who were there before them, usually with no compensation and very often violently. Google (read America) has digitized thousands of in-copyright works from all over the world with no compensation to the rights holders of these works. They did not even attempt to contact the owners. They stole them, just as sure as much of your West was stolen from the First Nations peoples.
Douglas Fevens
Halifax, Nova Scotia
The University of Wisconsin, Google, & Me