Archive for the 'Education' Category

TED Talks: Dave Eggers

Published by Taylor on May 18, 2009 in Books, Education and TED Talks. View Comments

This is part of an ongoing series in which we highlight particularly fascinating talks from some of the world’s most innovative thinkers. These videos are featured courtesy of a Creative Commons license; for more on the TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), click here.

I’m a huge fan of Dave Eggers’ books. While some folks thought A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was a bit indulgent, I loved (nearly) every word. I enjoyed You Shall Know Our Velocity! even more, and found What Is the What to be heartbreaking and sincere.

What I find most interesting about Eggers is how his commitment to the written word extends beyond his own works, or the magazine he publishes, to include a heartfelt and effective social enterprise geared toward helping young people find their voices and receive one-on-one tutelage in writing. His nonprofits (the first of which was 826 Valencia in San Francisco) serve as a fun and unintimidating setting for after school tutoring and creative inspiration. His deceptiely simple idea–that a network of writers and freelancers with flexible schedules could engage young students in an authentic and helpful way after school hours–is making a huge difference in the lives of kids in cities across the country. I encourage you to watch the inspiring video below in which Eggers describes his philosophy and the quirky model of 826 Valencia. It involves pirates and superheroes, but I won’t give any more away:

You can also download this video to iTunes (MP4 file) by clicking here (”Save Link As” on Windows).

The Science of Political Science

Published by Jarred on April 19, 2009 in Education, Politics and Science. View Comments

Back in January, I got into a debate with some work colleagues over the status of political science as a “true” scientific discipline. Though I think one or two were playing devil’s advocate, the consensus seemed to be that political science was not worthy of the second half of its name. I argued (and do believe), however, that it is indeed a valid science.

To be honest, I can’t remember my friends’ specific arguments (we may or may not have been sitting in a hot tub in the mountains and a few drinks in — thus making the debate fairly comical to begin with). I’ll be sure to let them know I’ve blogged about it so they can correct, clarify, or elaborate on their arguments in the comments. As I remember it, though, their main contention was that because political science is the study of human behavior, and because observations of human behavior cannot reliably be generalized and retested to form a consistent theory or law, the study of politics cannot be classified as a science in the same vein as physics, chemistry, or the other “natural” sciences. It’s simply too flaky.

At Davidson (where Taylor and I went for undergrad and both majored in political science), there is a huge division among the department faculty on this point. Currently, every political science major is required to take “Methods and Statistics in Political Science,” a course that is almost uniformly dreaded. “I’m majoring in a social science precisely because I suck at math”, they complain. “When will I ever use this again?” The science and math wannabes that we are, Taylor and I loved it, and ended up working with our professor one summer on a quantitative study of how congressmen shape their political messaging.

The fear of the course stems mostly from a failure by the faculty to execute any kind of positive PR, because really, it’s not that bad and not that hard. Anyone who is smart enough to get into Davidson can handle it. The first half of the course doesn’t deal with a single number, formula, or regression model, but rather shows how to take a question of politics and attack it using the scientific method. Delineate the specific question, form a hypothesis, decide what the variables are, and propose a way to run an experiment. Not hard, right? The second half is certainly more difficult because it delves into the quantitative realm using computer-aided regressions; but really, it’s nothing impossible and the professors are not only ready, but eager to help them understand and succeed.

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Growing Up With Technology

Published by Jarred on February 19, 2009 in Culture, Education, Lifestyle and Questioning Things. View Comments

A post over on CrunchGear notes that a recent study in the UK concluded that the average age at which children receive their first cell phone these days is eight years old. I believe I was in 10th grade (2000 or 2001) when I received my first cell phone, right when I got my driver’s license — so, around age 16.

At what age will you start introducing your children to technology? How old will they be when you give them their first cell phone? Their first personal computer? Their first online profile? How will you regulate their use?

For me, I am of the opinion that starting children on technology early and responsibly is the key. Technology will be a major part of their lives from an early age whether we like it or not, because it will be tightly integrated into all levels of education from pre-K onwards. I want to be part of that learning experience with my children. This is partially because I want to impart my love of technology and innovation to my kids, just like others want to impart their love of football or music or dancing. But it is also because I want to make sure that it is me that is showing my kids how to use technology responsibly, and to teach them good habits.

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People Send Us Things, Part I: The World Wide Web Foundation

Published by Jarred on October 9, 2008 in Computing, Education, People Send Us Things, Philanthropy and Web 2.0. View Comments

We like getting e-mail, tweets, and feed shares about cool stuff that you think we should blog about. We also like creating new “series” of posts to a) establish sub-themes for the blog, b) encourage us to keep posting, and c) give us some shadow of legitimacy to hold onto. Additionally, if you can’t tell, prepositions are my favorite things to end sentences with. Thus is born a series we’re going to call “People Send Us Things”, and this story passed to us by Brika is just what we were looking… for.

Not too many people can legitimately include anything approaching the following in their bio/resume:

In 1989 he invented the World Wide Web.

Boom. Street Geek cred: check. The man who created teh internetz is none other than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and he’s on to a new project — the World Wide Web Foundation. This organization seeks to do the following:

to advance One Web that is free and open,

to expand the Web’s capability and robustness,

and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.

Huh… that mission statement kinda reminds me of this little start-up in Mountain View. Anyway…

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Habitual Thinking

Published by Jarred on May 11, 2008 in Business, Culture, Education, Health and Science. View Comments

I read an interesting article in The New York Times (our favorite source) about habits and their influence on human creativity and innovation. Janet Rae-Dupree writes that

brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

Rae-Dupree goes on to note that, in addition to today’s much emphasized powers of analysis and procedure, we’re born with equally strong innovative and collaborative problem-solving capabilities. Those two approaches, however, are known to go under biological and cultural attack throughout our younger years. Biologically, at puberty the brain often “throws out” innovation and collaboration because they go underutilized and are deemed less cognitively “valuable.” Culturally, the emphasis these days on analytic and systematic learning (especially in the face of standardized testing) fosters less development of the more creative mental faculties.

It turns out that “stretching” our minds into new ways of thinking can be beneficial in multiple arenas. Physically, learning to think in new ways keeps our brains and even our bodies healthy. One interviewee in the article notes that “researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general”.

Encouraging unique thought processes can also benefit businesses, non-profits, and government. More and more, I hear about job interviews where people are asked something like: “How many golf balls does it take to fill up a school bus.” They don’t know the answer, and don’t really care what number the candidate comes up with. Smart companies are investigating and investing not in what potential hires know, but in how they think.

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