Well I have arrived in India to an amazing culture shock. Poverty on one side of the street then extreme affluence on the other. I have been rereading Thomas Freedman’s book during my travels and am amazed how often I come across another example of the dedication of the Indian people to become a superpower. The hotel newsletter quoted the GM as stating that the hotel was helping India become the world’s next economic super power. The discussions I have with the locals demonstrates their extreme pride in all that they do as well as a feeling that they are contributing to something bigger as an entire nation. I have taken clips from newspaper articles that really paint the whole education scene into perspective. Schools here (public schools at that) take out page 3 newspaper advertisements and proudly state their overall educational achievements and their desires for their students. I started reading one advertisement that quoted exam results, but was taken back by the statement at the end by the principal. He is quoted as saying
“While we delight in the impressive examination results at our school we are committed to the larger cause of inspiring the young to lead society to new possibilities in a rapidly changing world.”
Oh how I wish our educational institutions back home could grab a hold of that idea. Exam results are not the be all and end all. It is obvious that this principal has a true understanding of the purpose of education. I am now interested in how they actually achieve this goal. – Some more research for me perhaps?!?!?!?
So far, from what I have seen Freedman is on the mark. I am amazed at the infrastructure here in such a diverse nation. As we drove to the hotel down dirt roads and past old tin shacks I counted at least 5 internet café’s that were running out of run down old shacks. As I write this I am in my hotel room in Goa accessing the hotel wireless internet. Each morning I head down to the beach with my laptop and use skype to call my wife as I look over the Arabian Sea. If that is not enough, in this remote part of the country I have full mobile phone coverage. Not a single drop out… I receive text messages all day long from friends and family.
It is truly an amazing experience…..
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Ray Tapajna, editor and artist, for Tapart News and Art that Talks at http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews questions the data and concepts by Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat at http://tapsearch.com/flatworld. There are now hundreds of references under Tapart News and/or Flat World Tapajna on Google etc.
Basically, Friedman ignores the real world in many ways. Number one, he ignores the fact that workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade among many other questionable factors. Essentially most of the new high tech technology is quite different from what was intended by those of us who were part of the beginning and part of ever generation in computers. Much of the technology are just toys for the upper 20% class made by an underclass of workers. If the Flat World is true, it will implode. Imagine 400 million automobiles in India, China etc.
See also “communications by rank”, “the unnetted” and “if you are not part of any network, you do not exist”. at http://www.experiencedesignernetwork.com/archives/000636.html
We tell the young to stay away from high technology in the Flat World because everyone in the world are competing for the same jobs. We tell them to find something geographically bound or exclusive for paticular reasons. It is senseless for workers to become the main commodities of Free Trade. There is no Workers Dignity especially when they have no voice in the matter.
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