Do you ever take the time to look really closely at what's happening in your town?
I live in a place that some people might call a tiny town. It's a city of 100,000. I've been here for almost 9 years now; a transplant from a much larger, neighboring city.

I prefer this tiny town. There are no traffic jams, lots of parking spots and room to breathe.
But this is a union town! Most people here have worked for GM or have a parent who has worked for GM. The economic outlook is bad for this little town. But outside the confines of our town, something else is happening so fast that most people aren't aware of it. Globally, there is a New Economy and it's passing us by at the speed of "wireless".

This is what I think. I might be wrong, but I've been studying this informally and watching our town closely for quite some time now.

Our tiny town was referred to (by Johnny Carson no less) as "The Donut Capital" of the world. That's right! What a thing to be known for, but it's true! There are way too many donut shops. They are everywhere imaginable; so many donut shops and coffee shops, and each one is filled with small-town philosophers meeting daily, usually commiserating over the lack of work. The prevalence of donut shops has also caused us to be named the 2nd fattest city in the country but that's another story.

A few months ago, while doing some home improvements, an odd thing happened to me.  I started getting calls from painters and contractors whom I had never even met before. Things became more clear when I learned that this city's renovators and contractors all meet in a certain donut shop early every morning to trade contacts and business cards of the jobs they "can't" or "don't want" to do.

This practice is not exclusive to painters and contractors. Believe it or not, there are two different donut diner / coffee shop establishments that are the daily meeting places for musicians. Now I can't even imagine how many dozens of other coffee "clubs" there are sitting hundreds of hours per month in these coffee shops!

This is where I see the problem. With the exception of the contractors, who can do "hands-on" work within a small radius, we all need to be thinking much more globally.

When Canada, or the USA is in an economic crisis, there are so many other connections that we could be making. It seems to me, that success now, is a cooperative effort. It's got to be a cooperative effort globally, not just locally.

The internet is truly the greatest vehicle for inexpensive travel. We can travel the world all night, or all day, if need be. The cost is not an airline ticket and it's not a dozen donuts. The tools needed for successful internet flights are things that often eluded young people when they were sitting in school.  A good grasp of the English language, a good grasp of spelling, knowledge of other languages, a thirst to learn about different customs AND creativity are the hidden costs of successful internet communication.

I want to explain what I mean further. For the past two months I have been making a website (as a Christmas surprise) for a friend of mine who practically lives at the coffee shop. Part of the website will be a "links" area, linking up YouTube videos of musicians he admires. These video artists are amazing! They live all over the world. Mostly though, they live on the internet. They post videos of free guitar lessons. One lady has had 161,000 views. Another guy has had 65,000. Did you know that for some seasoned professionals with many viewers, this has become a full time job with a full time income to match? That's right. YouTube actually pays these people, but to qualify one must draw in an extraordinarily high number of viewers.

While some people in my town are lamenting the lack of work locally, others in far flung places, who are enterprising and understand the New Economy, are cashing in through a whole new area of social networking.

YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are the new social networking arenas. Because of this, it means that right now, we should be teaching out students to successfully communicate, build friendships, and share ideas with others around the globe.

Some coffee shops are no longer local. The busiest ones, like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, are free and they encompass the world. However, people there are not judged by how much coffee they consume, but by how many creative ideas they contribute.

Although it's hard to teach creative thinking, I encourage you to get your students involved in writing to pen pals now, so that when they graduate they will be equipped to express themselves without grammatical and spelling errors. You can find pen pals for class exchanges on our website here: http://www.sara-jordan.com/activities-penpals.shtml

Next week, next year, and five years from now, the successful people in town, won't be meeting at the local coffee shop to lament about how things could have been different.

They will actually be instrumental in making changes, through global connections and correspondence.

Change is possible, but we, as teachers, must be the agents of that change.

Next time you're in the local donut shop, take a look around.

Please let me know if you think I'm wrong!!