What?? I have to learn to learn?!?

"A friend once asked Isodor I. Rabi, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, how he became a scientist. Rabi replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his school day. She wasn't so much interested in what he had learned that day, but she always inquired, "Did you ask a good question today?" "Asking good questions," Rabi said, "made me become a scientist."

This quote, by an unknown source, opens Chapter 7, titled "The Right Stuff: Tubas and Test Tubes," in Friedman's book. Reading this quote really made me step back and think for a minute. We have been talking for weeks now about globalization and how through it the world is becoming "flat," as Friedman describes it. Through his entire book, he explains how the world is eventually becoming more flat and interconnected by society as a whole becoming more informed and advanced technologically. Every day presents new advancements in information and technology, and it seems like we are coming continuously closer to a day where anyone will be able to communicate with anyone else in the whole world with hardly any barriers between them. With these advancements in technology, logic tells us that more people in the world will be considered "intelligent," with higher levels of education and more prestigous degrees in things like engineering, sciences, and technological communications.
This seems like a simple assumption if we just think about it on the surface. People are becoming more educated; therefore, our society will be more advanced and will benefit more. It also seems likely and probable that the reverse will also happen. However, if we think about this concept in more depth, we should realize that this assumption assumes too much - that people know how to learn. No matter how technological and advanced the world becomes, we will get nowhere if we don't learn how to learn. Friedman says in chapter 7 that "...In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them" (309). This is so true. You can have all the education your money can afford, but if you don't know how to learn, you will get nowhere. As I think of this idea, I can't help but make up my own term to describe this need - The Great Learners: those who are especially gifted at learning different things, anything, and are able to apply what they learn to their work, their life, and the advancement of the world.
Friedman, in the same paragraph that he talks about learning, quotes Alan Blinder, a Princeton economist, saying that "it is clear that the U.S. and other rich nations will have to transform their educational systems so as to produce workers for the jobs that will actually exist in their societies" (309). If people are to learn how to learn, then it must follow that teachers must learn how to teach. The intellectuals in this country and all around the world are, and will continue to be, held responsible for the future of our world. These are not just "teachers" in the sense that we think of them; rather, they are everyone who knows anything about their field. Because not only do people need to learn how to learn; we also desperately need to learn how to teach, how to explain. Friedman even includes a group called "The Great Explainers" as one of the "new middlers," the jobs that will not be able to be replaced and outsourced in the future by automation, technology, or other impersonal components that are quickly becoming more popular. According to Friedman, being a great explainer is one of the most important and beneficial attributes to have in the increasingly technological world. In a world where everything is becoming automated, people are coming to appreciate the rare times they actually get to deal with and talk to a person. In Chapter 6, Friedman says "The pure backroom technical person, who does not have good people skills, might be less in demand. And the good people person, who might be just one chapter ahead of the clients in terms of understanding [the trade], becomes more valuable - because he or she is a really good explainer" (290). This shows the importance of being able to explain what you know. For the future of the world in the way it is so quickly progressing, explaining, or teaching, may be one of the most important things to succeed in. No matter who you are or what your job is, the world cannot keep up its progress in the way that it is going if the people who know valuable information today don't know how to explain it to future generations. The following video further explains this idea, and gives a picture of exactly what it means to explain, teach, learn. In the coming age, being "illiterate" will no longer mean simply being unable to read; it will refer to those who cannot adapt to, compete with, and cooperate with their surroundings.
If people that are educated in a field become well versed in how to explain their knowledge, it must follow that the people that they are teaching learn how to learn. "Learning how to learn" seems like a weird concept at first, but Friedman explains that it is "to constantly absorb, and teach yourself, new ways of doing things or new ways of doing new things" (309). Honestly, the world is constantly changing so fast that if you simply learn your trade and nothing else, you, or at least your knowledge, will soon be useless. Because of the constant and ever-increasing advances in today's technology, people will be even more required to learn how to learn than ever before, as what they know today will become obsolete and they will constantly be required to learn new things. So, as Friedman emphasizes the importance of the Great Explainers to be able to share and teach this information, equally important will be the Great Learners. If we can master these two skills, I believe that the advancement of this world in every single way will be more easy and beneficial for everyone it affects.

"I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn." - Albert Einstein