A Faustian Bargain

All civilization comes through literature now, especially in our country.  A Greek got his civilization by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it.  But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise.

- William D. Howells (1913), American Writer and Critic

A literature-based education is the exact opposite to Standards-Based schooling, the public school reform movement that has defined the first decade of the 21st century.  Schools today work to collectively raise the standards, or scores, of American students.  The key word here is collectively.  The final end of American public education today is to raise collective scores. This is what administrators focus on and look to inspire teachers to accomplish:  higher standardized test scores.  To what end exactly?  According to educational consultant Ruby Payne , raising the real estate values of communities, is an important reason children should go to school and do well on standardized exams. 

Are we deliberately training a generation of under-educated, apathetic and literary ignorant people; that is, classic barbarians, so our homes will retain or increase in value?

That seems like a terrible trade, like nothing short of a Faustian bargain. 

No Easy Acess for Us

Google Books will not digitize French literature, french president Nicolas Sarkozy announced today.

"We won’t let ourselves be stripped of our heritage to the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is,” Sarkozy said.

 So France will fund and thus control its cultural digitization project.
This refusal to let french literary treasures swim amongst Google's classic books with no obvious distinction; naked for the entire world to judge impartially, seems arrogant and cowardly.  The idea that French literature should only be doled out, beautifully packaged, by the French government seems limiting and could prevent future digitized generations from accessing some of humanity's greatest works as easily as I can today by visiting my local library.
In today's physical libraries, Victor Hugo and Pieter Hugo may stand side by side.  Most libraries don't have a room dedicated to french literature and so french greats may be stumbled upon by innocent seekers.  If French works are absent from the world's largest and possibly most efficient digital library, would not that be a loss for the French and the rest of us, in the end?
I love the aesthetic considerations that are a French obsession and surely play a role in this decision to keep digitized literature in French hands.
But, would it not be better if Sarkozy's government funded a French-controlled cultural collection and at the same time turned a blind public eye to whatever Google is doing and future plebeians across the globe might still stumble upon French literally grandeur?

Open Education: The Newest Tool for Dialectics?

The birth of what was to become the Western world's first university, occurred under the breezy shade of an olive grove dedicated to the goddess Athena. Thirty-year old Plato, the first professor, lectured sparsely, but posed humanity's greatest questions before his students for discussion. The teacher served as a discussion guide, a moderator. The brilliant students, hand picked by Plato, sought to discover truths as a collaborative community. Eventually this method of intellectual growth came to be called dialectic.

Fast-forward 2,300 years and this original method of academic discussion, at least in the United States, which boasts more than 5,000 universities, is reserved for only the creme-de-la-creme. The brightest students at the most elite universities seek to discover truths through collaboration with teachers, advisers and each other. Those whose paths have lead them to more mediocre centers of learning, though nor necessarily less expensive, sit and listen. And sit and listen some more. And after some more sitting and listening regurgitate facts on tests and quizzes and sometimes in shallow essays. No one expects these students to solve humanity's greatest questions.

This linking of passive acquisition of information to a University education is oppressive and demeaning to students, many of whom could be capable of tackling humanity's greatest questions, if given a proper university experience that includes dialectic.

The grassroots Open Education Movement (OEM), pioneered by Richard Baraniuk of Rice University, may be the impetus to never-seen-before human intellectual progress, and a very modern form of dialectics. The OEM aims to open up education in the tradition of the open-source software movement, such as Linux.
Using 21st century tools, this OEM collaboration on speed will grow exponentially as students from around the world gain access to real-time tackling of humanity's questions, from the most basic processes we still don't fully comprehend to universe-sized cosmological ideas.

Open educational materials include text, images, audio, video, interactive simulations, and games that are free to be used and also re-used in new ways by anyone around the world. Participants in open-education are working toward a broad set of goals, that democratize education and include intellectuals of all ages, disciplines and nations, reduce the cost of teaching materials (throw out those $120.00 textbooks), reduce the time lag between the production of course materials so they remain crisp and relevant in our fast-paced world.

Imagine the dialectical possibilities when ordinary university students are equipped with an entire collaborative intellectual universe.

Music On My Mind

Are you good at tuning into the smallest nuances of human speech and its emotional variations? It could be because you started piano lessons at age seven. Neuroscientist Nina Kraus believes musical experience not only sharpens your hearing for music but also alerts you to emotions expressed in speech, such as anger or sadness. The more time (both daily and across the years) a musician has practiced the more obvious the effect. This has hopeful implications for the treatment of mental disorders related to decreased emotional connectivity, such as autism. Maybe we will soon see music lessons especially tailored for autistic children.
In Venezuela, musician Jose Abreu tailors music education to improve the lives of 300,000 poor children, one lesson at a time. Children admitted to his program sign up to practice an orchestral instrument every day they eat, for many hours. They learn classical music from expert musicians and each other. Eventually they join the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra, travel the world and gain a discipline that will forever lift them from poverty. The current conductor of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, is a graduate of Abreu's program.
You don't have to be mentally disabled or living in the poorest neighborhood of Caracas to benefit from the practice of music. Yet it is rare for non-musically trained adults to seriously take up the discipline of music. We somehow find time to hit the gym and even finish a New York Times crossword puzzle now and then.
Could it be our society is so focused on expertise and competence, that it is difficult for adults to start something, they will be terrible at for a few years, from scratch?

What Scientists Want

Currently in India, the average age of laboratory scientists is close to 50. Bright university students aren't drawn to scientific careers with little pay and little glory. They either defect to the West or choose more lucrative work at home. But India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is making sure this trend is reversed within the next decade. Last December, the journal Nature reports, Singh launched a five-year, 21 billion-rupee (US $427-million) scholarship programme for a million 10-15 year-olds, whose funding can continue through graduate school if they stay in science. Singh's plan also guarantees research positions for new science PhDs. These changes will be a boon for older scientists as well. So many new science teachers will be needed that the retirement age for science professors will be changed from 60 to 65, and foreign professors will be recruited as needed. India is going scientific. But will the coming new batches of scientists stay in India? They will if the following three life qualities also improve in India:

• Scientific freedom and plenty of funding


• Great places to live long term and raise families


• India's own heroes of science: people the young will want to emulate

For India to go scientific long term, it must also embrace a culture in which it is O.K. to, in the immortal words of Ms. Frizzle:

take chances, make mistakes, and get messy, because the best science swims in such an attitude.

Keep Courage

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
-Albert Einstein

The current economic crisis will influence today's children to become risk averse. This fear of making mistakes and trying the new may seep into the mindset of an entire generation. Such a fearful mindset shared by millions of Americans will reduce the rate and scope of creativity and innovation of the entire country.
So, how to avert this tragic effect? Is there a way to shield our children, to keep children innocent, from the negative effects of financial mistakes gone haywire? Yes, there is. Each adult being watched by a child must herself act with courage, every day, in the big and the small stuff of life.
And how does one do this? By surrounding oneself with positive, courageous people and deciding to be a big person, worthy of emulation.

• Make mistakes.
• Keep courage.
• Try new things.

Even if this isn't who you really are, fake it, till you make it. Because now, more than ever, the courage exhibited by individual adults will make a positive difference in the future lives of today's children.

Musical Scientists

Alexander Graham Bell took breaks from inventing the first telephone by playing piano. Einstein played the violin to let his mind work subconsciously when stumped. Neil Armstrong played the baritone horn in between space simulator sessions. All three played in private, but times have changed. Scientists today want to rock in public. A band of scientists, Rock-It-Science, plans to play in NYC on March 3rd.
Cool? Sure.
The real question is whether this change in instrument choices will change parents' instrument recommendations for their children. Will parents still push their kids to play that violin for an extra 15 mins.? In the 1990's Don Campbell popularized The Mozart Effect, he even wrote a book by that title, convincing millions of parents that early music education (classical music) would improve children's mental prowess. Will 2009 parents of small children soon hear of
The "All American Rejects Effect"?
Scientists beware of the trends you start!

Ordinary Inventing

Rather than advanced technological development and education being elite activities bounded by scarce space in the classrooms and labs, they can become much more widely accessible and locally integrated, limited only by the most renewable of raw materials: ideas.
- Neil Gershenfeld (2009), Professor MIT.

On a cold February morning, ten years from today, you may be able to program your car via e-mail, to turn on and begin defrosting and heating at exactly 7:55 a.m. (five minutes should be enough to get you out the door for work on time). Your coat could be warming in the heating closet you also programmed with the click of a single button. And your children could have already been fed warm oatmeal and a cup of blueberries by a robotic breakfast-maker. This Jetsons-like existence really is about to become ubiquitous. And inventing is about to become part of ordinary life.
The Fab Lab, originally from MIT, now has locations around the planet where ordinary people have access to technology specifically designed to make ideas and inventions a reality. Neil Gershenfeld, overall director of these Fab Labs, believes personal Fab Labs will be available so every household can make it's own inventions on site within the next twenty years.

Below are my top three questions about how Fab Labs will change our future:

1. How would you change your physical world, if you could make almost anything you think up by using a personal Fab Lab?
2. How will commerce change if you can design a dress at home and have it made within an hour by your personal Fab Lab?
3. How will education change, if larger Fab Labs become centers for learning and innovating?

Hmm...the possibilities.

New Urban Centers Coming

We are unable to live without each other. Even on a practical level, it is probably a million years since any human being was entirely and convincingly self-sufficient: able to survive without trading his skills for those of his fellow humans.
- Matt Ridley (1998), Zoologist & Science Writer

Babies instinctively know what is most important to human survival: connection. The little ones unable to connect emotionally with a caretaker fail to thrive. But emotional connectivity skills need constant maintenance throughout life and different skills are needed throughout different life stages. A baby's sustained gaze with eyes, bright like little lights hooks you in. Eye contact is the base of all in-vivo human connection. But a ten year old that hooks you with his eyes needs to do more to maintain the connection.
Human connections, of course, go way beyond person to person emotional communicating. We are the most complex social beings on the planet. Our web of connectedness is vast, intricate and so tied to our humanity that a person not securely connected experiences the negative physical systems of extreme loneliness. Today, humans are forging more and more virtual connections that are productive and time consuming. But real life connections seem to be decreasing. This trend cannot be blamed on technology. But may be, at least partly, linked to the way our living spaces have been structured.
Since the 1950's, when William Levitt and his brother Alfred, designed the first American suburb, Levittown, with long term mortgages and community pools, live connections in the United States have become increasingly trite. As people moved from urban centers, day to day contact with others decreased substantially, especially for women.

With increased physical distance other forms of human connection decrease. Now with the Internet, where you live matters less in so many ways, but connections based solely on technology do not meet a person's human emotional needs. As we become more connected through technology, people with means will choose to live physically closer to other humans, not only to meet their emotional needs for human contact but to increase the capacity of their creative pursuits. Sprawling suburbs, and especially the more recent McMansions, are on their way out of popularity. People want to see each other face to face, more often, and for longer periods of time. Cities are back.

"O.K. Johnny, Explain Your Idea."

The Punahou School, set on 76-acres of hearty tropical grass with lush bushes highlighting startling flowers and huge banyan trees, is a truly beautiful school. The K-12 school, founded in 1841, feels more like a college campus and has an exotic mix of the scholarly and a laid-back Hawaiian-style. Barack Obama is the first U.S. President to come from Punahou, Hawaii's top independent school.
I recently sauntered through the Punahou campus and noted how fortunate students attending there are. Fresh fruits and vegetables are standard fare for lunch; windows are huge and most teachers leave their doors wide open. Elementary classrooms have their own little backyard for children to move in and out of; junior high students may choose to study Spanish, Latin, Mandarin Chinese or Japanese. But really, what makes these students extra "lucky" to be at Punahou is that each student is seen as her own person, full of potential, abilities and gifts to share with the world. Students at Punahou are there to gain skills to fulfill a bigger purpose, bigger than receiving a world class education. They are there to learn what they need to, to contribute to society and make their mark on the world. Their parents have big dreams. Their teachers have big jobs. The children know the school will serve them well.

President Obama experienced a quality education. Like many other U.S. Presidents of the past, he aims to improve American public education while in office. The job is huge. Some argue it isn't even possible at this point. Former public school teacher turned education activist, John Taylor Gatto says:

We must wake up to what our [public] schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants.

Children at Punahou are expected to lead someday. Children in the typical public school may have different expectations. To begin real positive change in public schooling, the grand picture of its actual function must be created, written and burned into the memory of every citizen. The basis for this change lies in what is best in American culture. The United States arguably houses the most innovation friendly culture the earth has ever seen.

Could public schools channel the beauty of American flexibility and openness of mind to improve the individual lives of its citizens and even the entire world?

Could the function of American education be to provide humanity with hordes of great contributors?

Must American education differentiate itself from that of other nations?

Yes. Yes. And yes.

Barack Obama has said a lot about American public education. But the key, the gleam of hope in his ideas on education lies in his comments on assessment. Obama says:

I will provide funds for states to implement a broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students’ abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, present and defend their ideas.

Obama hopes American students will soon be taught and tested to present and defend their ideas. That is a different and truly American idea in education. Americans serve, not by being "good listeners" but through contribution.

More power to you and good luck, Mr. President.

Girlish Glee in London

And the school children, those alleged dysfunctional products of our greed-obsessed, low-serotonin, broken-homed, intolerably lardy, TV-ruined society, were in a snowy wonderland where there was no school, no rules and nothing to worry about. I've never seen London secondary school kids look filled to the brim with such girlish glee.

-Stuart Jeffries (2009), British Journalist

My skin still glows from the mild humidity of Hawaii's version of winter. Post vacation and back home now, I am somewhat grateful to live in a mild climate. Somewhat, I write, because I am an adult with things to do and responsibilities to execute, but still hold memories of pre-dawn February mornings on Long Island, huddled with siblings, kneeling by the stereo, hoping, waiting, almost like a second Christmas, for a general announcement of cancelled schools. Cancelled schools meant closed roads. By 10:00 a.m. neighborhoods across the island rang to the brim with childish glee.

So today, I happily imagine the children of London, who don't often experience Snow Days, and today complain to no one of their numb butts and faces, wet clothes and stiff knees. Cheers to snowy London!

Opening Up Creativity

The time seems ripe to explore the potential of open education to transform the economics and ecology of education.
-Toru Iiyoshi, Director of the Knowledge Media Lab, Carnegie Foundation.

A friend of mine once called me "the creative type." I took the comment as a compliment but I know she meant it more as a descriptor with little judgement attached. I do wear more flowey skirts and dangly earrings than she does, but am I really "the creative type"? Not necessarily.
Creativity is a hot topic of study in various fields of behavioral science and now neuroscience. What constitutes creativity is still being defined by these fields. In general, creativity is a human trait we long to posses and hope our children exhibit a healthy dose as they grow. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has put together a list of characteristics exhibited by creative people throughout history. Creative people are:

1. Curious
2. Tolerant of ambiguity: Creative people are comfortable not having the answer all the time
3. Intuitive but logical, too. Creativity calls for moving easily back and forth between these two broad ways of thinking and processing information.
4. Open to emotions
5. Sense of humor: There appears to be a strong connection between humor or playfulness and creativity
6. Risk taker
7. Persistent
8. Self-disciplined: The perception that creative people are flighty, dis-organized, absent-minded is simply not true. Some are, many are not, just like any segment of the population.
9. Internal motivation as opposed to being motivated by external factors, like, say, money.
10. Wide ranging interests

Rex Jung, Ph.D., Founder of the new field of Positive Neuroscience has posed the following list of questions for science to address regarding creativity:

• Why do people with low IQs and autism produce beautiful art?
• Does creativity and/or intelligence require written language? e.g. Native Americans; preliterate societies (ancient – Ache)
• Can we really define creativity or intelligence?
• Is creativity constant over the lifespan?
• Is creativity just a social construct – a fad of a certain era?
• Should we study creative individuals as opposed to measures of creativity?
• How is creativity manifest in the brain?
• Are we all creative or only a special few?
• How can individual creative capacity be encouraged and developed?
• Are creativity and intelligence linked in any meaningful way?

The fields engaged in studying creativity are just beginning to scratch the surface of human potential. But it all seems to be leading to practical applications for human learning and education. Formal education is at a tipping point, about to change, to open-up, to better fit the functions of the human brain, including the fostering of creativity. More resources than ever are available to learners. The time really does seem ripe for human learning about creativity to change education for the better.

Take Note

It takes longer to study a life than to live it, longer to interpret a work than to create it, longer to understand an event than it took to happen.
-Robert Davidoff (2006), American Historian

Each moment of President Obama's inauguration seemed to stand still in time. Like a tennis ball at the height of a service toss or one's gaze while holding a brand new infant, time stood, as if blinking wild with lights saying "I will remember this forever." The journalists, pencils in hand, are ready. The historians take notes too. This is a first that will be studied and analyzed and recorded. Our young daughters will remember Obama's daughters and our grandchildren will write reports on his ideas. Maybe they will ask us "How old were you when Obama became president?" just to frame whatever else we have to say about this moment in American History.
I will tell my grandchildren how new time seemed at the moment Obama said "I, Barack Hussein Obama..." I will tell them how proud I felt because he represents a new and better world; a world in which ideas drive actions and words are chosen one at a time to inspire an entire planet. I will tell them my ninety-year-old grandmother called from South America to congratulate me on America's bright future. She also could tell the world was new once more. I will tell them of hope and how powerful a human emotion it is, if only for today.

Sullenberger's 10,000 Hours

The pilot Chesley Sullenberger was "the right guy at the right time at the right moment" to guide a powerless jet safely onto the surface of the Hudson River only 40 hrs. ago. Calm and mindful as pilot and leader his behavior was "flawless." All people aboard his airplane are alive today because Sullenberger put in 10,000 hours into becoming an exceptional pilot. Sullenberger is a classic "Outlier" as described by writer Malcolm Gladwell in his new book Outliers. Sullenberger has even put in time studying the psychology of how people behave in crises'. He knew exactly what to do, he saw the big picture and mapped out a plan of action in a minute. He took care of everything and everyone. His calm direction allowed his crew to perform impeccably. He overlearned what to do in an emergency and had no problem executing. His feat saved the lives of more than one hundred humans and gave America a new kind of hero, a hard-working one. Cheers to Sullenberger for putting in the time.

You Must Be Able to Control Your Feelings

Today's edition of The New York Times reports on the Pentagon's decision to exclude soldiers with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from receiving the Purple Heart, the medal given those wounded or killed in combat. The honor, establish by General George Washington, reads

Let it be known that he who wears the military order of the purple heart has given of his blood in the defense of his homeland and shall forever be revered by his fellow countrymen.

Although various explanations are given for the formal denial of this award to mentally ill veterans, no one sites the assumption that those with purple hearts are
forever to be revered by his fellow countrymen.
But really, our society is not yet ready to overlook the heightened state of "fight or flight" experienced by PTSD sufferers. It really would be difficult to revere someone with uncontrolled rage or major depression. Few would look up to someone who cannot control her mental state and the receipt of a Purple Heart might loose its potency for other recipients of the hallowed award.

Technology Is A Lot Like Money

10 Ways Technology and Money Are Similar

1. Too little technology know-how and we starve.


2. The more technology used the more management is required.


3. It cannot make us happy, but it opens up our world and gives us so many more options and ways to become happy.


4. We use it to trade goods, ideas and information.


5. It can increase our efficiency, efficacy and potential, or spoil us for real work depending on how it is used.


6. It can bring us together or isolate us depending on how it is used.


7. It separates the new from the historic.


8. It promotes democracy by leveling the playing field.


9. It is a tool for achievement.


10. It is a sign of growing societal complexity.

Good News For The "Artsy"

There isn't any knowledge stored in literacy, in all our libraries and databases. What we can store are symbols that are a cue to knowledge. People can read the symbols and not understand the knowledge, or partially understand it, or have only a vague sense of what it means.
Kieran Egan, Professor of education (2008)

We are in the Information Age, and many of us are "knowledge workers"; we work with knowledge. Being in the Information Age means there is more knowledge available than in centuries past. An historian in the 1980's spent much time in dusty libraries in far away places, but now that job is often done by a data entry person. Dust is less part of the historian's experience these days, but the process of making sense of history is the same. The historian, still sifts through data, maybe from her desk at home, but she must still

pick, decide what information is worth including in a narrative and what is useless data. The great historian will construct a beautiful, compelling narrative. That is something a data entry person may not be able to do. Art, in all disciplines, whether history, medicine, cosmology or biology will flourish and push humanity toward greater introspection. Probably the key function of artists in this century will be the ability to choose well; to judge in time, what is important, from the absolutely best word to describe a smell from long ago to what physical structure accounts for dark matter in the Universe. So:
Information + Judgement = Art
and: Art is the gold of the twenty-first century.

Interesting Jobs For 2020

The world is a changin' and everyone realizes children may not grow up to have the same careers their parents have today. Technological and social changes create new forms of work. So, what types of jobs are on the horizon for your children?

[This list is borrowed from a posting on Business Briefs: Jobs for 2020]

Social Technologies presents:

10 Careers You May Never Have Thought Of:

1. Realizer—Creates real versions of virtual objects for people, from grog tankards to sports cars.
2. E-scrubber—Works to undo or minimize the indiscretions that people accumulate on the Web.
3. Unrealtor—Creates virtual tourism, adventure, and retail destinations.

4. Nano-decontaminator—Cleans up nanomaterials now being spread through the environment.
5. Deceptionist—Provides tech-enabled deception services for those wishing to disguise their activities.
6. Genetic dietician—Creates diets tailored to people’s individual genetic makeup.
7. Geoscaper—Makes corporate and private properties look attractive in Google Earth-style aerial views.
8. Unplugger—Counselor/ mental health professional who helps wean people from excessive technology use.
9. Eye pilot—Operates small, remotely piloted, camera-equipped aerial vehicles over war zones, disasters, and other locations of interest on behalf of news services, nongovernmental organizations, and private companies.
10. Sexbot controller—Many things can be done remotely. Not for the squeamish.

To Write or Not To Write

Writing is the great invention of the world.
Abraham Lincoln (1862)

The nineteenth century is a wonderful period for social historians to research because the act of writing became an acceptable use of leisure time for more women than ever before. Women had diaries and journals and wrote letters. Many were left behind for us to study and sometimes even marvel at today. A similar milieu is simmering today in the blogosphere. More and more plebes (myself included) are actively participating in conversations based on the written word. Our tools are more complex; we don't use quills and china black ink anymore.
With more capable tools, will our written thoughts be more grand? Not necessarily. To write great things, one must think great thoughts, and to think great thoughts, one must have great models to mirror first, then surpass.
We live in a time of great opportunity and more options than ever in history; the challenge lies in choosing well. Whom and what we choose to allow as models will determine what we leave behind for our great-grandchildren to read and consider. Will the early twentieth century be interesting to historians of the future? Or will the written mess we leave behind be dismissed as way too noisy and trite?
I'll take my chances, and participate anyway, just for the joy of being part of it all.