What does it mean to "prepare our students for a global economy"?
When I think about a global economy, I think of equal access to economic resources, easy entrance and exit from markets and no pricing power. As an example, the cotton tshirts industry is approaching perfect competition and zero economic profits. In a global economy profits are eaten away quickly and prices fall to marginal cost. In the global economy I envision, there is complete factor mobility. I see these characteristics in telecommunications and information, but not in sectors where there's exclusive ownership of a resource.
So when I am preparing my students for the global economy, how should I prepare them? Many professionals recommend that I teach higher order thinking skills and how to use a computer. But shouldn't I be teaching how to patent an invention or buy land to extract monopoly rents?
To be sure, the skills I must teach must complement math and writing.
Your comments are welcome.
Very interesting! I hadn't really thought of that. It seems a better option than teaching kids how to fill out a bubble form. I think along with higher order thinking skills, helping them to define what their competitive advantage is, what they are talented at and how they can use it to make a living in a global market, that would be helpful. I continually see kids getting "stuck on an escalator." They can't think their way out of a problem. High schoolers saying "My pencil broke." or "I don't have any paper." as an excuse to do no work. What happens when they have a real problem? Can you teach creative problem solving and ingenuity?
ReplyDeleteI think you've broke the Pinata with that comment...I think the whole arguement comes down to developing all of your human capital so you CAN enter contestable markets...I think students need the diversity that studying abroad and learning a foreign language brings...I also think that most workers in the US don't worry about losing their job to an immigrant or to outsourcing...Thanks for your input...
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