This takes me back to Morocco in April of the past year. We were in Rabat, the capital city, and met with an NGO that has helped to make a poor neighborhood better to reduce crime and gangs. This wasn't your typical NGO though. It was run by college students--people just like you and me. The way they helped was through hands-on efforts; they plan a summer camp for the kids to get them off the streets and participating in positive, confidence-boosting activities. The people we met with were both inspiring and motivational.
Here's a picture of some of the kids from my study abroad and our new Moroccan friends! Please note the super comfy couches that go all the way around the room: typical in Morocco and a wonderful place for guests for sleep!
After talking to one of the guys for quite some time, I realized the true depth of his inspirational qualities. He began telling me about the fact that he watches tons of American poetry slam videos on YouTube and that he does poetry slamming as well. Yet these aren't the only types of videos he can be found watching. He also watches lectures from American universities such as Stanford that are posted on the internet for anyone to see.
After watching these videos, he and one of his buddies decided to get together and do their best to change and educate the world. Their plan is to start a website in which they can make videos of themselves and others teaching lectures in a classroom setting that can be broadcasted across the globe. Learning for the sake of learning. Learning as an equalizer. He's pretty good at math and sciencey type stuff, so he wanted to lecture on that. He planned to create a chatroom in which people could ask questions and in real time he would answer their questions on a livefeed. He was seeking others to help with this work, others to teach English and history and just about any subject you can think of.
While this idea has yet to materialize, it is completely obvious that in-forming has become a flattener in his life. He spends his time learning all there is to learn on the internet and he wants to share the favor. He feels that no matter where you live, you should have access to the same free and customized education. Ten years ago, a dream like this would not even have materialized. Ten years from now, this dream will easily become reality.
Throughout my entire time in Morocco, I realized just how small the world truly is. An eye-opening experience like this which shows globalization at its utmost potential, is exactly the type of experience that would fire Friedman up. Just the fact that I was in Morocco was an accomplishment. It required tons of technology just to plan--especially because almost 100 people from my study abroad program were there during four separate sessions. The fact that we were able to communicate in one language with little to no problems was also impressive. Moroccans learn French in schools but speak Moroccan Arabic outside of the classroom, yet many of them have also managed to learn (or more often teach themselves) English.Thanks to technology, they can listen to songs, movies, and TV shows in English and therefore have a much easier time learning the language.
It's exciting and scary and weird and inspiring to think about the potential flattening that will occur in the future. Imagine a world where you can get a well-rounded education online for free. It might seem a little unrealistic today, but I don't think my Moroccan friend was too far off. I think with Globalization 3.0 and the pace that we are moving, it's more than possible. In my opinion, we need more people just like him. We need more people to take the positive effects of globalization and run with them to make the world a better place.
Welp that's all for now, but check back next week for more!
Beslama! (That means bye in Moroccan Arabic!)
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ReplyDeleteI completely understand your amazement of your Moroccan friend and his impressive, not to mention admirable, goal. Almost the same thing struck me while I was abroad - I went to a French school expecting to speak French the whole time, but to my surprise, not only did almost every single one of my classmates speak English to some degree, but they consumed English language media to such a degree that I could make jokes about American pop culture and my Slovenian friend would instantly understand. I definitely agree that informing has had an astonishing effect as a flattener. In the days of card catalogs and encyclopedia box-sets, information was a rarer commodity, one that required much more work to access, and the ability to acquire information was a prized skill. These days, between Wikipedia, Google, and social media, information is only a click away, and it no longer matters if we know or can get information, but how we sort through the information we have and what we do with it. I think your friend's idea is fantastic and really epitomizes the spirit of our generation. To us, information is a right, we EXPECT to have access to whatever we need to know whenever and wherever we need it. My only questions/concerns regarding his plan are of a more practical nature; namely to what audience is his site directed at? Is it to the world as a whole or Moroccans/North Africans? College students and above or high schoolers? What language(s) will he use? Also, what deficiencies does he see in lectures already available online from Stanford and others that would make his teaching necessary? Really interesting post though, and hopefully you'll let us know when he puts his plan in to action!
ReplyDeleteI agree that the availability of education is extremely important in leveling the world. That is awesome that kids over in Morocco are taking advantage of Stanford’s free classes. It’s almost funny to think that the majority of University open courseware is probably being used by the semi-periphery and periphery countries, rather than the core countries that they were initially tailored to. There is an awesome site called Open Culture (www.openculture.com) that categorizes and lists open courseware from places such as MoMA, Oxford, and even PSU. I personally like to take advantage of TED (http://www.ted.com/) talks all the time. They offer so much insight and knowledge into the problems our generation and future generations will face. I know I would love to see any of those websites’ analytics information, since it must have traffic coming from all over the world!
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don’t believe that informing will level the field by itself. There is something that a Liberal Arts education offers that select open courseware from various professors can’t provide. I remember in a speech at Stanford, Steve Jobs mentioned that after dropping out of his first college he ended his session with a calligraphy course. The course inspired him so much that everything he learned made its way into the design of the Macintosh computer. The same success story of art, culture, and science mash-up could probably apply to most major tech companies. The truly original ideas implement both art and science. I believe that is one source of adaptation Universities provide students; the ability to mash up and integrate all that we learned. Once we are able to provide personal input and maybe even independent study to individuals from a computer (for free), then online education will be complete.
Hopefully he succeeds in his endeavor, because it does seem he can add the personal touch that education needs. In his own way, your friend seems to have that “Untouchable” quality that Friedman mentions. Many here are waiting, while living on extended unemployment, for jobs to reappear; he seems to be adapting himself to solve his own problems and the problems of those around him.