.3 International Standards

Now, I know that you have heard me say this before but I have to say it again; American education is a way, not the way. The fact is that a lot of people do a lot of things differently the international world of education. Some do them better, some do them worse. The United States do not have all the answers, but we have a system which we are struggling to make work for us.

And, we are making changes to how we do things. Slowly but surely, we are beginning to swing from the old fashioned factory model to the information model. Students are no longer considered to be in need of straight instruction, they are now seen as needing empowerment. We have moved from building passive students to creating active ones.

However, even with all the differences between different national schooling styles, global systems are more alike than they are different. Albeit the similarities have come about through more accident than anything. There seems to be a type of convergent evolution going on: the world is settling into international standards without really trying. This is good, because it shows humanities natural tendency towards unity, but international standards can certainly be created more easily than they are stumbled upon.

Take, for example, the English language. Right now English is fast emerging as the informal international language. It is the language of choice of the Internet and also of airplane control towers. Nobody has set English as the international language, but we certainly seem to be headed that way. Now, wouldn't it be a lot better and more efficient if the world had deliberately chosen and international language? Incidentally, there was a time before the Second World War when Esperanto seemed set to become the international language, but after the war interest dropped drastically. Now it seems to be English. The same pattern can be seen in measuring systems; metric vs imperial. The world sure seems to be choosing metric. We may not agree with them yet, but we will have to some day. It would have been easier if a long time ago we had decided officially one way or the other, but we didn't and now we are paying for it. Did you know that it costs the world 3 billion dollars annually just to convert between metric and imperial?

Setting international standards is no easy game, and it takes a while before it comes right. Lets take, for example, the UPC codes in supermarkets. It took a whole lot of time before that technology was established. And when they first came out, many stores preferred to stick with their old price tag system. Now adays, it is pretty much unheard of not to have scanners. And all the number codes are unique! My sons in Zimbabwe have a code for their postcards, and if you scan it in on a machine right here in Farm Fresh, it will read the code (there is no price in the local databases for it, but it will read the code.)

What is important to realize is that we are moving towards international standards, and it is better to accept that and act on it by sitting down and deciding on those standards than it is to live in passive denial, and have the world assign them to us.

	Why is it good that global systems are actually more alike than different? Is this surprising?	Answer Here
	How can Mr. Andrews, a high school social studies teacher, teach his students that there really is a lot of difference in cultures when the world seems to be more alike than different right now and for the future?	Answer Here