The race to go global
State Superintendent Sandy Garrett’s speech and a video that preceded it had some sobering information we all ought to consider.
Garrett’s speech came during her annual leadership conference.
Read Garrett’s speech here.
See the video here in QuickTime format and here in Windows Media Player format.
A few excerpts:
- If you’re one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you.
- The 25 percent of Chinese people with the highest IQs exceed the population of North America.
- China will soon become the number one English-speaking country in the world.
Now, the heady stuff.
- Today’s student will have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38.
- One out of four workers currently works for a company with whom they have been employed for less than a year.
- Former Education Secretary Richard Riley predicts the top 10 jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
- One out of every eight couples who married in the United States last year met online.
- The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the planet’s population.
- A week’s worth of The New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.
Now, the stuff that gives me hope and nightmares at the same time.
- By 2013, a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capacity of the human brain.
- By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the brain’s computational capacity.
- By 2049, the $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capacity of the human race.
Say what you will (and many people have) about Garrett’s push for longer school days and school years. The video is stark and speaks for itself.
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I read the speech and watched the video. (Thanks for the help in getting there.) Yes, the video was stark and I didn’t like the creepy music that went with it…music might be good in some other context, but then I think that the video was made to creep you out….after all, a point had to be made and “special effects” always help in that manner, so I will take it with a grain of salt.
I will also say that an additional hour of instruction time and more days added will help, if-big if- they are time used wisely.
I recently visited with some parents whose school (not in Oklahoma) went to the following schedule- 8:30-4:30, Mon-Thurs., and they start after Labor Day and have a longer school year than Oklahoma, with fewer breaks. Initially, the parents were skeptical and didn’t want this, but after trying it, they said that it is better. It not only allows for greater utilities and staff cost savings, but it allows for greater educational programs and additional funding for such, and helps to offset the costs to pay teachers additional to stay more hours.