The Book is Fat

I recently finished reading Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. I have taken to calling it The Book is Fat because Friedman breathlessly describes every conversation he has ever had with anybody on the Indian subcontinent. It seems that every cab driver in India is a sage who is one step away from building the next Infosys. I have been an erstwhile fan of Friedman’s for years, but it seems with each book he gets a bit more garrulous and self-absorbed. I am never sure whether his books are going to turn out to be insightful economic analysis or self-congratulatory travelogue.

For the most part The World has some good insights. But there was one throw-away line mid-way through that had me scratching my head. Friedman is describing an imaginary conversation he is having with his daughter wherein he gives her advice about what to do in the newly flat world. His advice? “Do your homework.”

For a guy who occasionally strikes upon the profound insight, this sort of “march to everyone else’s tune” pabulum comes as a bit of a surprise. If the world is indeed as flat as Mr. Friedman makes it out to be (and the impending cultural conflicts that he described in the Lexus and the Olive Tree may in fact do to the present globalization what World War I did to the last big spurt), then it is time to come to grips with the fact that there will be certain areas in which the U.S. can’t compete. You take a hungry kid in China, give him access to the best math education in the world, keep his cost of living low and connect him to the world through the Internet and you can bank on the fact that analytical work is going to flow to him (or her), and not to some middle-class white kid from the burbs.

I believe that the U.S. has one significant competitive advantage – we live in a place that is unique in it’s tolerance of failure. We can take the natural tendency of human beings to be creative problem solvers and artistic agents and let them create value at the leading edge of innovation. That is an area where we can continue to win, and fortunately for us, failing quickly all the way to fantastic new innovations is just what the economy of tomorrow will need to fuel top-end wealth creation.

But there is a major hitch in that plan: our K-12 education system. We are a competitive nation and we therefore measure ourselves against other country’s abilities on standardized tests in math and science. Unsurprisingly, we tend to do pretty poorly. Apart from the Sputnik impetus we have never been a nation of great rote learners. The motto doesn’t say “Give us your analytical, your conservative, your huddled lab teams yearning to, well, you know, just be.” People who yearn to be free have a certain psychological footprint, and the 1950’s Wally and the Beaver societal inflection point isn’t a great representation of that gestalt.

Yet most of our present educational system has been established with the goal of homogenizing all the dangerous creative tendencies out of young people so that we can more effectively produce little cogs in a big, patriarchal mechanism called “The Corporation.” Picture a heavily starched white polyester short-sleeved shirt with bad tortoise-shell glasses and a buzz cut, and you see modern education’s utopia in a neat uptight package. We just all need to act like pleasant little analytical automatons and nobody gets hurt. What’s that you say? Most of the jobs that require that couture are moving overseas? Quick, to the math books so Sister Mary Margaret can beat the snot out of us with a ruler! Yeah, that should do it.

The conventional wisdom has the U.S. education failing because we don’t do well on standardized tests. I say that if we do any better on standardized tests we will all be speaking Cantonese in 30 years. “Doing your homework” is a great way to ensure that, in a flat world, you have to move to China to get a job. And while America definitely needs craftspeople, tradespeople and local services, the present day educational system doesn’t do a very good job at addressing those needs either. Yet even if it did, the simple fact is that all those service jobs are completely dependent on an economic engine that sustains and grows a middle class. Being able to call a plumber is dependent on being able to afford a plumber, and ultimately the wealth creation we need so that everyone can afford a plumber is based on the capacity of most workers to do creative knowledge work.

Shhhhhh! Can you hear that? It's the screams of millions of dutiful parents who spend their evenings doing their children’s homework because they believe it’s the only chance their kids will have to get ahead. I am not advocating that your kids drop out of the system. It is unfortunate but true that in our present system we measure things that don’t matter and reward success for achievement in measurability, even though things that are easy to measure are rarely as important as things that aren’t. Kids still have to play in that fetid swamp or risk losing access to all kinds of great opportunities, like working nights and weekends in an investment bank so that you can get divorced and hire the best psychologists for their progeny. I understand everyone wants to reach for that brass ring. But let’s not fool ourselves that “doing your homework” will prevent work from going to the cheapest source, or that memorizing bits of information that one can just as easily Google makes your kids economics-proof.

I look forward to Mr. Friedman’s next book: “Oh Crap, I Meant Be More Creative and Collaborative!” It should be a great read, even if we all have to wait for the English edition.

Comments

[David Douglass]

So true. The educational system strives to perfect mediocrity. But doing poorly in school isn't an option (unless you truly are a genius). If you want your kids to succeed, you have to give them creative opportunities outside the educational system, and let the creativity emerge from within them.

[Colin Kingsbury]

I don't dislike him but Friedman's writing sometimes manages to parody itself. Re the immigration bill a week or two ago, he wrote, 'What we need is a very high fence, with a very wide gate.' It sounds profound until you actually consider its meaning literally. It's the sort of pompous tripe you expect to hear from someone who's been getting his a-- kissed by too many for too long.

As for our education system, I'd just like to take a moment to speak in praise of conformity and rote learning. Saying that there's no reason to learn arithmetic because one can use a calculator is like saying there's no reason to go for a jog because a car can get you places much faster. One of my junior-high history teachers once said, "names and places and dates are the raw materials of new ideas." There is a difference between the person who actually *knows* a particular set of facts, and the person who can google "Treaty of Westphalia."

What I am worried about are kids whose education has not taught them any sense of discipline or accountability. I had a math teacher who, maddeningly, refused to give partial credit for arithmetic errors, because "the whole point of math is to get the answer correct." Painful? Yes. But the point isn't to make kids feel good about themselves, but to teach them to concentrate and pay attention to detail. You don't get partial credit in baseball for almost hitting the pitch, either, and almost getting the chord right doesn't make you a great guitar-player, either. Creativity isn't ultimately about breaking rules but about changing them, and to do so effectively it pays to first know them.

[Lance Knobel]

Tom Friedman jumped the shark a long time ago. He has found a lucrative niche dispensing conventional wisdom to aspirant Davos men and women, at excessive length, as you point out.

I agree with your criticisms and the point about the need for creativity and collaboration. There's another point to make on Friedman's book: the world isn't flat, and it is unlikely ever to be flat. UCLA economist Ed Leamer has made this point brilliantly here: http://uclaforecast.com/reviews/Leamer_FlatWorld_060221.pdf.

It isn't a short or easy read, but you'll learn more real economics than a half dozen books by Tom "Airmiles" Friedman.

[martin snyder]

Jeff I see public schools from a whole other angle- my dear (and brave) mom has taught middle school in an urban district for over 20 years, and the odds are you have no idea of what goes on there every day. If you have ever seen 'OZ' on HBO, that gives some idea of the tone of the place, if not the specific pathologies seething from every direction.

Homework? That's a laugh...kids literally strangle other kids and are sent back to class. Everyone knows someone who has been shot, stabbed, lived outdoors, etc. Teachers are called every name in the book, and anything not locked is stolen the minute it's put down. If it is locked, it's gone in a few days. There are a few computers per classroom but they are always broken/virused etc. Textbooks are coverless, old, and few. Many students are literally suffering from forms of PTSD.

Per-student spending might be high in dollars, but lord knows where it goes- all of the teachers spend thousands and thousands a year from their own pockets on the basics- paper, pencils, calories.

And yet...the lesson of it all? Smart parents have smart kids. In spite of the near total lack of education occurring within the school, some of the kids manage to develop intellectually. In fact, it would take major effort to hold them down and keep them from learning and growth. But for the kids who don't have smart or caring parents, it's a total clusterf***.

There are millions upon millions of these kids in America- and they are the real issue in my mind, not the kids whose parents value learning, have printed material in the home, and even slightly model winning attitudes and culture. Those kids, by and large, are going to be fine, for the same reason that those few stars in the worst schools shine- you can't keep em down.

If you want a radical solution to this intractable problem, here ya go: pay the kids for success. Not lunch money, but thousands of dollars for good grades per grading period. We spend it now anyway, so just redirect it. When major scratch is on the line, kids and parents won't tolerate disruptions and distractions. Moralists will whine that it would be sending the wrong message about learning; that it would amount to bribery. I say, go for it- that’s how our economy is set up anyway- pay for performance is the way we play it, and why shouldn’t these kids, of all people, not be immersed in that reality when it can help? Who are we kidding?

What's really needed in these areas is some walking around money- and two or three thousand dollars for a slate of superior academic performance would make a big difference in these people's lives. Not college money or tomorrow money, but spending stuff. You would see studying like you have never seen before, and major focus by parents and others to make sure everything needed to make that dough was there. Of course there would be some problems- some crime, some fraud, etc., but this notion of paying real money for performance could change the utter rolling catastrophe of our urban educational systems. We should try it somewhere to see if it might work.

Next week; why college football players should be paid $60K a year rather than some paltry tuition and books for risking body and soul to entertain the masses

[Cindy@Find a Diet]

@Lance where did the term "Jump the Shark" come from, anyway? All I can remember is its from something old (I think), but for some reason I'm seeing it all over the place these days.