In the New York Times article, “It’s a Flat World, After All,” Thomas L. Friedman writes:

“These are some of the reasons that Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, warned the governors’ conference in a Feb. 26 speech that American high-school education is “obsolete.” As Gates put it: “When I compare our high schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations. . . . The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.

“We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living.”

While I agree with Friedman about the world’s flatness and the danger of America becoming mediocre, I disagree with his message that we must work harder. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not afraid of hard work. My objection lies in the fact that Mr. Friedman’s recommendation reflects our society’s short-term mentality that working “harder” (by studying for more hours, sleeping less, etc.) will get us ahead; what he critically neglects to discuss is the consequences of “working harder”: the increased stress and drastic decrease of quality of life that is becoming a reality for today’s students.

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