Some Interesting Notes from Class

We had an interesting discussion in class Monday night and I thought I'd share some important ideas. Most of these points came from the first chapter of "Coming of Age in A Globalized World." First we broke into groups. My group did not appreciate the emotion in the chapter, although other groups did. It was interesting that in a discussion of a chapter that highlighted looking at things from different view points, we all approached reading it from different view points.

About the discussion itself, the first stunning idea for me was when Dr. Fried said of the globalization that "its not their poverty, its our wealth. Its not environmental problems, its our misuse of the environment..." Dr. Fried also said "time eats space" and often the battle against globalization is the battle for protecting one's space. Both of these ideas resonated with me, although I don't have anything clever to say about them right now.

The final point that resonated with me had to do with change. We had been discussing "people who resist change." My notes don't reflect if it was Dr. Reckmeyer or Dr. Fried who said "often resisting change might mean resisting change in YOU" and that there is a "constant tension between what's worth preserving and what makes sense to change." This ties back to what Peter said the World Bank was working on: trying to put control of resources and skills into the hands of the people most affected by the results.