Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve Got Google

global events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, advances in technology and the Silicon Valley bubble leading to massive investment in fibre-optic cables, the playing field had been levelled. Suddenly, whether you were a multinational company from Tokyo or a 14-year-old boy in New Delhi or a housewife in Nevada, you had access to the same flat space. The rules had changed and now everyone could play.
    As Friedman says, ‘When I was growing up, my parents used to tell me, “Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.” I tell my daughters, “Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.”’ (Friedman 2005).
    Another point Friedman puts across is the insight that some jobs are what he describes as ‘fungible’. This is a term relating to commodities that, although different, are alike enough in nature as to be interchangeable. As far as the flat world is concerned, a fungible job is one that can be digitized and transferred anywhere else in the world. For example, why should I continue to pay my accountant, who’s very good and very qualified and lives comfortably in the middle of England, £40 an hour when I can pay someone in China £4 an hour to do pretty much the same job, namely moving digits about on a spreadsheet? And even if I think to myself benevolently, well, he’s a nice enough chap, I’ll hang on to him, then I end up paying over the odds for a basic service. Which is not good business for me. And ultimately him.
    With this scenario in mind, I worry that, with our focus in education on grades, the successful schools being the ones with, ergo, the top grades, what we are doing is preparing the next generation of unemployed accountants. They’re very good, very qualified, but, hey, who needs ‘em?
    Some jobs, on the other hand, are ‘anchored’. You have to be there to do them. Nursing is a good example. To be a nurse you may have to apply a dressing to a wound which means you have to be physically present to do it. But in terms of analysing, diagnosing, prescribing, all that is ‘fungible’ and can be digitized and sent to the best ‘wound expert’ in, say Singapore, who can then tell the nurse what to do. The nurse’s job, then, is OK. The doctor’s job is up for grabs. What’s more, in the UK we are facing a shortage of nurses and, according to one report, have 3,200 consultants too many. 9
    Friedman cites, as an example of the sorts of competition his daughters – and your students – will face, the ‘Zippies’, as originally depicted in Indian magazine
Outlook
. Zippies are the first generation of commercially global Indian citizens and are described in the magazine as:
    A young city or suburban resident, between 15 and 25 years of age, with a zip in the stride. Belongs to generation Z. Can be male or female, studying or working. Oozes attitude, ambition and aspiration. Cool, confident and creative. Seeks challenges, loves risks and shuns fears.
    The new flat world means the young people in your classrooms are about to come across Zippies and others like them head-to-head as they compete for the jobs and opportunities that are out there. How will they fare? Friedman quotes Bill Gates when he says, ‘We are going to tap into the energy and talent of five times as many people as we did before.’ That’s great if you are an employer. A global pool of talent five times bigger than anything we have ever had before. But if you are an employee, that’s five times the competition. Your children are going into direct competition with the best of the best of the rest of the world. And remember, they are not ‘entitled’ to the jobs and opportunities that are out there. Nor are you and I. We have to merit them. Indeed, as Friedman points out elsewhere:
    The entitlement we need to get rid of is our sense of entitlement. 10
    Notice the Zippie attributes that are described there (as opposed to the qualifications). Ambitious, aspirational, confident, creative, risk taking, brave. Find out who your enterprise coordinator is at school and show them the list and they won’t be surprised. We are very much in the realm of entrepreneurship here, (something someone once described as ‘Jumping off a cliff and building an aeroplane on the way down’). Chris Lewis, author of the study on successful entrepreneurs entitled
The Unemployables
, suggests that the following is what is needed to succeed in business:
    • Positivity
    • Bravery
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