Friedman

So...I don't know if I am going to be blogging about the right information, but here we go. I found Chapter 5 of Friedman not as interesting as Chapter 6, so I honestly paid more attention to Chapter 6 and found some interesting facts. One quote that intrigued me was when Friedman stated,

"Let's start at the beginning. The key to thriving, as an individual, in a flat world is figuring out how to make yourself an 'untouchable'" (278).

How does one become an untouchable in today's world? Honestly, I think it should start with us as teachers. I feel by becoming en educator it is part of our responsibility to encourage our students to be what they want to be and push them in a direction that will benefit them in the long run. We need to set a spark inside of them to pursue what they want to do with their lives. For the students that don't know what they want to do or don't want to further their education we need to me their motivators to show them that they can do the unthinkable, they can become "untouchables." As teachers, we need to find different ways to stimulate their education and their learning so they want to be in school and they can find something passionate to do with their lives.

Also, with reading Chapter 6 Friedman states,

"The more we have good synthesizers, who can bring disparate things together, the more we will need managers, writers, teachers, producers, journalists, and editors who are also good explainers -- who can see the complexity but explain it with simplicity" (284).

To me that line alone goes to show that the classroom will never go away. How can we have classes online when Friendman even said that we can explain things. Granted yes you can explain things online, but how easily? How quickly can a teacher respond to a question? We hold classes to teach and to explain the hardest of topics. I don't know if this is making sense, but I have many thoughts and I don't think they are coming out right.

My favorite story in this chapter is about the lemonade man at Camden Yards that took such a simple job ("vanilla task") and made it his own and really makes a living doing it. He is doing something anyone can do and putting his own spin on it to make money. It is his own thing and that is what makes him successful. I smiled while reading this story, I don't know, it's good to know that there are people out there working hard for their money.