Ground Zero of the
Flattening World
How Friedman’s The World is Flat
Applies to Novi High School

February 2007

I love mid-winter break. I can loaf around my house, get in some valuable reading time and generally relax. I can just forget about school for awhile. Unfortunately, the book that makes up the majority of my reading material tells me that I am a problem. In The World is Flat, by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, the author argues that the world is flattening, or becoming interconnected, at a breathtaking pace. That much I understand, but Friedman also claims that a “quiet crisis” is currently occurring in America. 

He says that more and more, third world countries are taking jobs from America because they can do them on the cheap. That much we all know- we see it every day driving past doomed automotive plants. More startling, Friedman claims that many in those countries, including India and China in particular, can do the jobs better! 

At this point you may be asking yourself, Alex what does this have to do with Novi High School? Well dear reader, there are three reasons America could be in trouble according to Friedman, and they all have to do with high school aged kids. 

America faces three gaps: a numbers gap, an ambition gap and an education gap. The numbers gap is less tangible to a high schooler- America is producing less scientists, engineers and mathematicians today. In fact, with many baby-boomers retiring, the attrition rate of those occupations could exceed the rate of new entrants. 

I can’t tell you that our fine high school is producing an adequate number of students who will pursue those vital careers. But as they become more and more important, due to the fact that innovation will soon become the only way to make a profit, it does raise a few questions. If we accept the fact that those subject matters will be the areas that matter most, what steps, if any should high schools in America take?  If schools demand that kids like me, kids who gravitate toward the “soft” sciences, take AP Physics, what will that say about the future of our culture? While it may be better for the economic health of the country, at what cost will that health be obtained? 

The second gap Friedman addresses is the ambition gap. Simply put, most American corporations find that foreign workers are not only cheaper but also better at their jobs.  American kids don’t have the motivation that Chinese and Indian kids do. The evidence: more Ph.D. recipients are first generation Americans than any other demographic. 

At Novi High School, I definitely see some truth to this statement. There are a lot of kids that believe the cushy factory job is still there as a safety net. If college doesn’t work out real well, or even if it does, that car manufacturing job is always there they think. As our region has learned too well from the past few years, that’s no longer true.  I also see a higher number of first generational Americans in AP science and math courses than traditional Americans. 

Finally, Friedman claims there is an education gap in America: American fourth graders hold their own when tested against foreign competitors in math and the sciences. But as age increases, America falls behind. Eighth graders are slightly behind their foreign peers; twelfth are markedly behind. 

So naturally the question occurred to me: what’s the solution?  To me, a high school student and soon-to-be college student, the picture seems pretty clear: whereas in the past an unproductive worker would be assured of a lifetime job, and not promotion, the stakes are higher in our flatter world. Now that unproductive worker could lose his job. 

The lesson I’ve learned: if you don’t grab the bull by the horns, it’s going to run you over.  As John Cougar Mellancamp would say,

Your father's days are lost to you
This is your time here to do what you will do
Your life is now, your life is now, your life is now
In this undiscovered moment
Lift your head up above the crowd
We could shake this world
If you would only show us how
Your life is now