Another brilliant insight from Tom Friedman... Today, Mr. Friedman uses Einstein as a lens to talk about science education in the US and China. Here he urges the US to improve the teaching of science by bringing in Einstein's imaginative approach to science:

"If only we could convey that in the way we teach science and math, maybe we
could nurture another Einstein — male or female — and not have to worry that so
many engineers and scientists in our graduate schools are from China that the
classes could be taught in Chinese."

This is on paragraph after he talks about the trajectory of the actual Einstein, who was not "nutured" by his education system, but fled it.

"Einstein runs away from the rote learning and authoritarianism of Germany
as a teenager in the 1890s and goes to Italy and Switzerland."

Also, about that "taught in Chinese" crack -- Many undergraduate science classes are taught by these grad students and essentially are taught in Chinese, or at least very poor English. Perhaps the secret to getting American students to stay in math and science at the university level is to have more actual faculty teach those courses.  ¶ 6:40 AM 0 comments

  Barack Obama, Present at the Beginning? Obama - New York Times: “The single objective of keeping America safe is best served when people in other nations are secure and feel invested.”

An interesting twist on the original Dean Acheson strategy of using American military might and foreign investment aid to distract the rest of the world from the fact that we had 5% of the population and 40% of the money (or whatever the real number was - you can Google it.)  ¶ 4:27 PM 0 comments