One of the Google executives whom I met at the Google Teacher Academy recommended we read Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, a profound analysis about the enormous changes that globalization and technology have brought upon society and how those changes will impact us both personally and professionally.

Pink explains that we’ve progressed form a society of farmers, to a society of factory workers, to a society of knowledge workers.

We have now entered the Conceptual Age that will require us to be creators, meaning makers, empathizers, and holistic “big-picture” thinkers.

Pink goes on to recommend that we ask ourselves these three essential questions about our jobs and careers:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I am offering in demand in this age of abundance and conceptualization?

I couldn’t help but wonder what we as educators were doing to prepare our students for this new fast-paced global economy that is now upon us where “abundance, automation, and Asia” are drastically changing what is required of our work force.

I just returned from the Google Teacher Academy where one of the presenters shared how to display API scores by area using Google Maps. She displayed a map with color-coded symbols representing API scores of each school in the area. Having lived in San Jose for five years, I am acutely aware of the distinct geographical borders that divide people by income. Those divisions were reflected perfectly in the API map displayed by the presenter. I later brought up the API map for the Central Coast. Both maps are below. Click on the map for a larger view.