More than 20 years ago, I was principal at Riverside Secondary in Port Coquitlam. One of the rhythms of that time was our Wednesday morning study group. It was a structure I brought with me from my mentor, Gail Sumanik, and it quickly became part of the culture. Each week, before the day got underway, an informal group of us would gather for coffee, donuts and conversation. We read books.  Not always books about education, but always ones that got us thinking. They gave us a reason to slow down and talk about the work, the world and where things might be heading.

It was a simple ritual that helped us build connection, both professional and personal. It was a small community of curious people making space for big ideas.

One of the books we read was The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, published in 2005. At the time, it felt like a wake-up call. The central idea, that globalization and technology were flattening the world, was provocative and timely. We talked about what it might mean for education if, for example, the person taking your drive-thru order at McDonald’s was actually sitting in Bangalore, India. If work could be done from anywhere, shouldn’t learning evolve in the same way?

For us, The World Is Flat became a kind of roadmap for a hyper-connected, technology-driven future. We imagined students collaborating across continents, learning personalized through intelligent systems, and schools adapting to a rapidly changing, decentralized world.

Now, two decades later, I find myself thinking back to those Wednesday mornings. While Friedman imagined a world where geography would no longer matter, K–12 education has remained largely rooted in place. Our systems still rely on physical buildings, in-person relationships, and a pace of change far slower than the forces transforming business and industry.

Yes, there have been shifts, especially during the pandemic and since. Tools like video conferencing, AI tutors, and global collaboration projects have found a place in our schools. But the core structures of schooling still feel more analog than digital, more local than global. And for good reason. Schools are not just knowledge delivery systems. They are social, emotional, and cultural ecosystems where human development happens in all its messy complexity.

There is also another force at play that Friedman didn’t fully anticipate. Over the past decade, education in both K-12 and universities has become a focal point in the culture wars that have swept across North America. From debates over curriculum content to battles over which voices and perspectives belong in classrooms, schools have become highly contested spaces. In the United States, these issues have dominated headlines. In Canada, we have experienced some less intense but similar tensions.

These conflicts highlight a deeper truth. The reason education hasn’t “flattened” in the way other sectors have isn’t just about logistics or technology. It’s about values. It’s about identity. When communities are deeply divided over what children should learn and how they should learn it, the idea of borderless, globally standardized education doesn’t feel innovative. It feels threatening.

Friedman wasn’t wrong. Many of his predictions were accurate. But the application of those ideas to public education has been far more complicated than any of us imagined. Technology has made global connection possible. But local politics and cultural identity continue to shape what happens in classrooms.

This raises important questions. How global is our curriculum when communities are fighting to keep certain perspectives out? Are we preparing students to thrive in a borderless economy when education itself has become a site of border-drawing? Can we teach students to collaborate with peers halfway around the world when we can’t agree on what they should be learning across the hallway?

Maybe The World Is Flat wasn’t meant to be a blueprint. Maybe it was a provocation. A starting point. A challenge to think differently about the role of schools in a connected world—a world that would turn out to be far more complex, and far more contested, than we imagined.

Two decades later, we are still answering that challenge. The world may have flattened in many ways. But education remains deeply local, deeply human and unavoidably political.

Those Wednesday morning conversations feel more relevant than ever. Not because we found the answers, but because we learned to ask better questions.

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