Yong Zhao’s NPE Speech, Transcribed– Part V (All Done)
On Saturday, April 25, 2015, University of Oregon education professor Yong Zhao gave a keynote address at the second annual conference of the Network for Public Education (NPE). Zhao’s entire 55-minute speech can be found here.
I thought this speech worthy of preservation as a Word document; so, I decided to transcribe it.
I am pleased to say that I am finished. The full transcription of Zhao’s speech is available here for any and all who wish to read it:
However, the remainder of this post consists of the last of my five installments of Zhao’s speech, for those who have been patiently waiting for this, Part V, after having read Parts I, II, III, and IV.
At the conclusion of Part IV, I ended with Zhao’s discussion of Asian officials’ wondering how it is that their students score so well on tests yet lack confidence, and how these officials recognize the need for confidence to foster creativity.
I will begin this final installment recapping Zhao’s words on this idea.
Asian officials now know that there is more to education than high test scores.
Zhao hopes that now-test-score-driven America will catch on.
Let’s begin:
And now, Asian systems do not take this [valuing of high test scores above all else] very seriously at all. They look at the factors, they interpret in a different way. They said, “How come our children score so well but have no confidence?” If you haven’t enough of confidence, you cannot be creative. You cannot be entrepreneurial. That’s what they want. All Asia said, “If you are not interested in science, it’s like, less likely for you to become a true scientist. So, that’s what Asian countries’ worry about. That’s why they have this reform; they want to change it.And this change has become extremely important when the “foggy Christmas” has come. [44:05] Because when the foggy Christmas has arrived, even Rudolph has become useful.Now, what’s the foggy Christmas like? Well, it’s two things that’s really changing us, affecting [us]. Big fact one, this is what Americans… by the way, most politicians recognize. The first one is called, “the arrival of the second machine age.” That is, uh, this is in contrast [with] the first machine age by steam engine. The second machine age is digital technology that is redefining the value of talents. Machines now can do a lot of human jobs. We have this. We have this. Automation has replaced a lot of jobs. It’s going to replace even more jobs. You know, we used to have a lot of, ah, tax accountants. We have Turbo Tax. You, you notice that? All this, it’s massive. America is, is at the risk of having a surplus of lawyers, which is almost [an] impossible phenomenon for America [laughter], but, you know, we, we are, we’re still suing each other as much as possible, but we, you know, just don’t need many legal workers. Digital databases allow you to search. You don’t have to go through the same kind of books. It’s changing. We have Google Car coming, which [means] we don’t need the taxi drivers for in the future. You know the Google Car thing? It’s happening a lot. So, are we educating our children to have, to compete with machines? Lot of reasons now our kids are back in our basement: We educate them for jobs that can [be] replaced by machines. If they are not replaced by machines, they’re outsourced. Globalization.Because [of] globalization, this is another interesting question: We talk about “global competitiveness,” out-educate, out-compete other countries, this is Obama’s words, but what does [it] mean? If China spends ten thousand dollars [to] produce the high test scores, if America spends ten times more [to] produce the same test scores, they have the same talents, of course they were to go buy the ten-thousand-dollar test score. America, even if we could score as well as Asian countries, but they cost less, it wouldn’t work. We’ve got to seek something different. Do something different.Last thing. So what is the “different”? The first thing that’s different is diversity of talents. Rudolph has become valuable because society has changed. We have arrived at [a] different society now. What’s the society? Number one, things called, we called the “age of abundance.” Age of, means we have increased productivity, we have more disposable income, we have moreYong Zhao’s NPE Speech, Transcribed– Part V (All Done) | deutsch29:
