EDUCATION MATTERS:Education in a changing world

Knowing more about the world. Future generations will need to be more sensitive to foreign cultures and more conversant in foreign languages. I say amen to that. The average American is not multi-lingual and is not, generally speaking, very conversant in the ways of other people in other places in the world. Revolutionary changes in communication are connecting us to countries and cultures in ways that make global awareness more a mandate than a wishful hope.

Thinking outside the box. The jobs that don't get out-sourced or automated are the ones that will require creative, innovative minds that think not just logically, but divergently as well. That has always been an American strength, but it's being sapped by a national obsession with standards-based curriculums in our public schools that focus increasingly on minimum expectations from our children.

"No Child Left Behind" casts a broad net to keep a rising number of learners from falling behind, but it also impedes the progress of our brightest students who would benefit more from being pushed forward rather than repeatedly going "back to the basics."

There are two sides to our brains and they require equal attention. We teachers need to loosen the braces from time to time and tend to that wonderful creative instinct that is, I am absolutely convinced, within each of our students.

Developing good people skills. Education needs to emphasize the need for better communication skills, especially working with teams and with people of different cultures.

Amen again. Like never before, our children and our children's children will need a wider view of humanity than their parents had. Whether that means that their world will be more complicated by having to learn to live with a vastly extended family, or ultimately made simpler by acknowledging the true bonds of that family, the world is shrinking and we're all being drawn closer together. I believe that it is our common humanity — not our respective religions, races, nationalities and contrived borders — that will bring us closer to a common understanding in this crazy world. That was as true in previous centuries as it will be in the 21st.