Chapter 10: Teaching English Language Arts in a Flat World

Friedman's eight roles that will create the "new Middle class" is very interesting to me. I never thought of it that way. Students need to know not only academic subjects; but also, need to know roles and responsibilities. Students in the 21st century need to be great collaborators, synthesizers, explainers, leverages, adapters, green people, personalizes, and localizers. If a student is able to learn how to be great at these skills, they will succeed in any job they do. I like how the chapter had different ways teachers can incorporate these skills within their academic subjects. Many of these roles and responsibilities can be incorporated into the classroom very easily. When teaching students how to collaborate, teachers can group students to work together, assign different roles, create deep discussions, and rotate the seating arrangement. Doing these simple tasks in the classroom will teach students to work together and how to generate ideas with other people. When teaching students how to synthesis teachers can teach students to consider multiple perspectives, read a variety of text and genres with different perspectives, and produce a presentation with multiple sources. When looking at different perspectives, students learn that their idea might not always be the best, or they can combine their idea with another peer to make it even better. When teaching students to be explainers, teachers need to teach their students to be personable and to be able to tell a story. It is essential to be able to relate to others in the workforce. Teachers can help students become leveragers by using reflections and self assessment of their abilities. Teach them how to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses. Students will be aware of the process of a task and how to solve it so they can do better the next time. To help students become adapters, teachers can have students work within different areas that challenge them in productive ways. It is also essential to bring in speakers from the outside that can talk about their work. Teachers can also have students complete an assignment in different ways with different tools. Teachers can help students become green people by incorporating readings that have to do with the environment  and create awareness of our world. When teaching students how to be peronalizers, teachers can have students create a document or presentation that is for someone else's needs, redesign the workplace to improve their effect on customers, and have them do work within the community. The last role is the localizers. Teachers can have their students generate useful research questions about a wide range of subjects across disciplines, research a topic from multiplee angles with alternative solutions, and use various persuasive strategies to create advertisements or brochure for a real or imaginary business. While I was reading this portion of the book, I kept thinking "I do that" "Oh, I do that too!" I think it is simple to incorporate these eight skills in the classroom. Teachers just need to be aware of the way they are teaching and how it will help their students in the future. If a student is successful in these eight skills, I believe they will succeed in the workforce.