Flattened Classroom Today: Flattened Leaders Tomorrow What does “flat” mean to you? Share with the people at your table.

Positive or Negative?? Depending on how you use the word flat, many different feelings or emotions could arise. What are some positive ways to use the word flat? Negative ways? Webster has many definitions for the word “flat”. However, the definition that seems to hit home to education is the definition that states: arranged or laid out so as to be level or even.

Flattened World Theory Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat uses 600 page of evidence that the world that we once to be “round” is becoming more flat with each passing day. Friedman mentions 10 Flatteners that he feels flatted our world from 11/9/89 (Fall of the Berlin Wall) to The Steroids (Digital, Mobile, Personal and Virtual). All of these events despite their location, time period or sudden effect caused the world to flatten and adapt a little more each time.

What Flatteners have we seen in education? With the flattening of the world our classrooms have also been effected. Many people in this workshop began teaching 20 + years ago. What changes or “flatteners” have you seen take place in education? School? Classroom? Think-Pair-Share (5 minutes)- Think to yourself for 1 minute, share with your partner for (2 minutes) then we will share for the remaining time whole group.

Why Prepare our students? Friedman mentions many examples of how our world is changing but one that we need to be most aware of is how we can better educate our students to operate in this new world. We can’t expect them to get by with the same type of education and survive in the same capacity needed.

How to better prepare our students. We need to give students the opportunity to try something, fail, trying something again, fail again and so on until they can come up with a way to succeed. We need to give them opportunities to be creative and quit trying to tell them what they can do or not do. We need to give them opportunities to see what their limit is and how far they can take their abilities. We need to teach them how to communicate effectively and efficiently so they can compete in a globally flattened world.

Take the Challenge… Will you take the challenge to be open minded to this new flattened theory and help prepare students…. After all …. They are our future.