3 Inspiring New Books

Continuous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential.
-Winston Churchill (1950), British Prime Minister

Superstar journalist Malcolm Gladwell tackles the topic of success in his new book Outliers. You must be good enough to enter a field, Gladwell says, but once you're in, who you know, how hard you work and how lucky you get, make all the difference in the world.
Fortune magazine's senior editor, Geoff Colvin, also just published his take on the same topic, success in Talent Is Overrated. Hard work is not enough, Colvin says, its the right kind of deliberate practice that boosts a person's chances of achieving greatness.
A third journalist, David Shenk is currently writing The Genius in All of Us, also about genius and success. Why all the books on success? Why are we enamoured with stars? Americans, are probably culturally predisposed to look up to successful people. We hold in our heart, and our founding documents, that each one is special with great potential to be someone and achieve great happiness. It is good to be reminded how to reach that wondrous potential.

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.

The Human Animal

Being able to self-regulate our emotions and our behaviors is a large part of what makes us human.
-John Cacioppo (2008), Social Neuroscientist

In the early 1960's part being human meant, among other things, being able to use tools. That theory, debunked by etymologist Jane Goodall's observations of wild chimpanzees, is no longer part of the "what makes us human" list. Today's list is focused on two main, apparently only human, attributes: Our extremely complex social systems and our ability to regulate our emotions. Yet, this new short list also begs editing.
Yes, we are socially complex, you may say. But aren't bees and ants extremely socially organized as well? They are. But they exhibit no where near our level of social interconnectedness. So, I guess, our humanness requires a certain of degree of complexity, a certain societal tipping point that occurred long ago and eventually led to the formation of the modern human brain.
But how about the emotion control point? You probably know at least one person who is frequently "out of control" emotionally. Are the emotionally volatile less human? Of course not. So, can you really make a list to define humanness? I think so, but not quite yet. Neuroscience is still in its infancy as a science and the human brain is not yet fully understood. One thing is clear, humans have huge brains and therein lie the differences between us and them.

Teach According To Your Ideals

"Hey love, share your truck with the nice little boy."

Every day, some version of this phrase is uttered by smiling parents in playgrounds across America. There is something very plastic about a parent encouraging her child to do something adults don't do; that is, share a prized possession with a total stranger. Yet, even though hypocritical threads run through many American child rearing practices, I am grateful to live in a society that attempts to teach its children the highest humanistic ideals.
Thomas Jefferson asserted "all men are created equal"; yet he kept slaves whom were not treated with equality. If Jefferson had limited himself to writing only principles that matched his life instead of his ideals we would have a lesser, even inconsequential, declaration of independence buried within old history books.
A nation's ideals determine it's future.

The indoctrination for toddlers in Palestine is devoid of our middle-class American niceties. Hate and warfare are ideals promoted to Palestinian children. Such ideals predict suffering and devastation not only for Palestinian children, but also for anyone affected by such a society.
So, go ahead, tell your child to share, even if you don't. Teach your child to get along, even if you yell at your neighbor over the fence. Maybe, because of your ideals, your child will be a bigger person than you.

New Track Homes?

Dongtan, located on an island off of Shanghai, China, is one of the world's
first truly green cities. It's still in early development but the bridge and
tunnel link to the mainland is now being built. This planned, zero-waste, energy-efficient community is to reach 500,000 residents by 2050, all the while maintaining much of the natural wetlands that provide one of the few remaining refuges for birds in a constantly developing country. The city will be powered mainly by sea breezes and only clean-running vehicles will be permitted.
It is so good to see a new brand of planned community.

Inner City Centers of Hope

We greet all students with the same basic recipe for success: high standards, stiff challenges, a chance to develop unexplored talents, and a message that many of them haven’t heard before–that no matter how difficult the circumstances of their lives may be, no matter how many bad assumptions they’ve made about their chances in life, no matter how well they’ve been taught to rein in their dreams and narrow their aspirations, they have the right, and the potential, to expect to live rich and satisfying lives.
-Bill Strickland (2009), Social Entrepreneur

At 16, Bill Strickland, now sixty, had an epiphany. The sun shone through a large window at his Pittsburgh inner city high school on a man in flow, sculpting a clump of clay. Strickland had never seen someone so engrossed in life and was drawn towards the light. He introduced himself to that sculptor and gained a mentor for life. With his mentor's guidance, the young Strickland gained a new, positive view of life and saw the world open before him. Four decades later, Strickland is deeply engaged in changing lives, opening up the world for other inner-city people, through social entrepreneurship. He runs the Manchester Bidwell Corporation and the Manchester Craftsman's Guild, both educational facilities based in Pittsburgh to serve mainly minority, poverty-ridden, youths and adults. These facilities are truly inspiring. They are well designed, both architecturally and educationally, to fill each student with hope and provide them the opportunity to work hard and learn much. Students may enroll in art and music classes taught by world class visiting artists. They may learn gourmet cooking skills or agricultural techniques. The list of offerings is impressive, but I think my favorite ideal of Strickland's schools is the life-changing personal attention and respect each student receives. The young people of Pittsburgh are extremely fortunate to have such an educational center only a free bus-ride away.
Bill Strickland's big idea is to expand his model to over 200 cities around the world. This is an exciting idea worth supporting.
To watch Bill Strickland's big idea TED Conference presentation, click on Bill Strickland's big idea . Enjoy and be inspired.

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.

Be Good Company

You learn from the company you keep.
- Frank Smith, American philosopher and educator

What does one teach a child?
She obviously needs certain basic human skills. She must get along with people (including herself, of course) of all ages, shapes, sizes, colors and beliefs (E.Q.). She must internalize the intricacies and nuances of reciprocal communication (speaking, writing). She should be able to google stuff and understand game instructions or soup recipes (reading, tech stuff). A little grocery store math would be good too (arithmetic). She must develop an intuitive balance between healthy food and treats so she feels strong, and must find a way to move that gives her joy (health) and learn what to do with her free time (music, art, business).
But how is this teaching best done? Some say that there is no such thing as teaching, that really there is only learning. When a child opens his attention to you it has little to do with what you are trying to teach, but a lot to do with his emotional state and connection to you. This view is best explained by Frank Smith in The Book of Learning and Forgetting, in which he differentiates "The Classic View "of learning from coercive teaching. Historically the learned have always known the following three truths:

1. We learn from those around us with whom we identify.


2. Learning is growth.


3. We learn continuously and with out noticeable effort

So, how do we teach our children the basics? We connect emotionally with them and somehow get them to identify with us and want to be like us and listen to what we have to say (teach). The educator and philosopher, John Holt (1980) said:

I think children need much more than they have of opportunities to come into contact with adults who are seriously doing their adult thing, not just hanging around entertaining or instructing or being nice to children.

Children need real mentors. Real mentors worthy of emulation. One teaches a child with one's life.

Sure, a child may learn how to decode words (read?) and put down words on paper in the most beautiful handwriting (write?) and calculate the square root of 100 in 2 seconds flat (math?). It is possible to coerce a child to "overlearn" almost any skill, but at a price any thinking person would not be willing to pay; a diminishment of that child's humanity.

Take Care of Your Hippocampus

The Hippocampus is the brain structure responsible for our ability to store short memories and is key in learning. This structure shrinks as we age. The more one uses its functions by constantly being exposed to novelty and new learning the less age-related atrophy will occur. But people of all ages can have premature hippocampal damage. Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University neurobiologist, is a researcher with a message for us all. "Long term stress is bad for the brain," Sapolsky says, because it produces, possibly permanent, hypocampal atrophy. The stress Sapolsky refers to is severe enough to create the life-wilting twins, "learned helplessness" and depression. The longer a person is depressed the faster her hippo campus shrinks, inhibiting future short term memory capabilities and learning. "Keep your life in perspective!" Sapolsky says. Unfortunately the people most likely to need his advice are the least likely to be able to process it. Depression is a shirking of perspective, a possibly destructive honing in on the self. Depression kicks in when sadness over life's bad turns does not resolve. Everyone experiences moments of great sadness, the people that best protect their hippo campus from long-term damage are those who have a growth mindset to begin with. People with a growth mindset expect to grow somehow through their deepest valleys of despair. They know they will come out a different person, a wiser person. Psychologist Carol Dweck believes "People can choose which world they want to inhabit." And that choice makes all the difference.

Robert Sapolsky on You Tube

Interview with Carol Dweck

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!

Up Your Nose Treatments?

The 5 February 2009 issue of the journal Nature reports on cerebral immune cells, microglia, as they may be implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases such as memory loss and dementia; as well as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Narcolepsy. Hyperactivity of these cells may literally eat up synaptic connections. Scientists are still researching and disagree whether the microglia are helpful or harmful in these conditions. Although there are many medical treatments available to aid in easing symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, no cure is yet available. The key to a cure may be figuring out exactly what microglia are doing at degenerating synaptic connections and figuring out how to stop them.
Futurist, Ray Kurzweil, is very positive about possible cures for these diseases in the near future. If neurodegenerative diseases are caused by inappropriately hyper microglia, the cure is soon to be provided by the insertion of microchips (in truly nano size) into the affected areas of the brain. These microchips would reprogram the cells to act as truly needed for healthy neuronal function. Medical trials are already underway with Parkinson's patients.
I'm hoping by the time I reach the age of common senility scientists will have all this figured out and I can drop by the microchip section of Target to pick up a short-term memory-restoring microchip I insert through my nose.

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.