Features

Assistant professor of education Eleanor Abrams believes that education is going to be less bound by location and more reliant on communications technology. "What's evolving are schools without walls," she says. "Students at many different sites who are interested in the same subject are doing online studies. Instead of going to the libraries, students are going to the Web, and it's opening the world to them, the chance to gain access to the most relevant and timely research."

Teachers will take on the role of coaches in the classrooms of the future, helping students to analyze information critically. "Teachers haven't grown up with this technology, and it will take a while for them to get used to it. But good teaching is good teaching; technology can accentuate the subject matter and help a teacher to stimulate student learning," Abrams adds.

Students in the future will be more connected to the global community, but may be less tied to their own, Abrams suspects. "They'll have to develop skills to process and sift through large amounts of good and bad information. They'll also need to be adaptable, and ideally they'll emerge as lifelong learners—or at least as lifelong adapters."

Declining barriers to international trade will play a huge role in determining the direction of the nation's economy in the next century, according to Michael D. Goldberg, associate professor of economics. The obvious benefits of globalization include faster economic growth, cheaper and higher-quality goods, and improved transportation and communication. Yet opponents of globalization fear that it can also lead to erosion of human rights, degradation of the environment, a decline in labor standards, job losses and the rise of multinational companies powerful enough to finance military dictators and stymie democratic processes.

How this nation fares in the global economy will be determined largely by the policies we maintain toward international trade, according to Goldberg. "We must determine whether to prevent the march of globalization by refusing to lower barriers further. But if we do decide to lower barriers, then we must determine whether to tie in guarantees of human rights and higher environmental and labor standards."

Goldberg maintains that increasing globalization will ultimately benefit the United States. "Free trade in goods, services and capital creates more business and employment opportunities and allows countries to raise their standards of living. It leads to certain jobs relocating abroad, but also to jobs coming here from abroad. The net number of jobs will increase in the United States," he says.

Willem deVries, professor of philosophy, sees a significant trend in the growing demand for applied philosophy, especially ethics. "Things are changing so fast, we're having trouble keeping up. As rapid technological change opens up new possibilities for us, we often outrun the reach of the policies we've relied on to keep us within the bounds of morality," he says.

"The tremendous growth in electronic media creates real problems in applying the concepts of free speech and privacy. It threatens (or promises) significant changes in the workplace and perhaps even in our democratic processes. But technological change is not the only reason we need to rethink old policies in the face of new challenges: in the post-Cold War world, how can we best encourage democratic governments across the globe?"

Clearly, the 21st century will be a period of rapid change, for better or worse, and how well mankind and the planet fare may depend on the values we hold. DeVries believes—although he admits he might be biased—the time is right for a return to prominence for philosophers. "People who can combine philosophical sophistication in ethics with significant expertise in such subjects as medicine, biotechnology, electronic media, engineering, foreign affairs and law will be increasingly in demand," he predicts. "We will need their help as we try to weave a sensible path through the thickets of a complex, changing world." ~

Kimberly Swick Slover is a free-lance writer.

 Easy to print version