[Vision2020] Foreigners in Math, Science, and Engineering

[Jerry Weitz]

Dave, this is a debate about risk vs benefit.  Child labor laws have had an 
impact and with unintended effects.  I agree with you completely.  Do you 
have any suggestions?  Jerry

At 09:29 PM 1/29/07, david sarff wrote:

>Hi Jerry,
>It seems there is also a correlation here to anti risk and liability 
>pressures.
>As I understand it, even the once common after school box boy job has 
>changed by pushing the age up for those who might have to handle actual 
>box knives.
>Children in schools must use wiffle balls. The reasoning makes sense to 
>some degree, but life is inherently risky.
>Its sort of nuts to hyper protect children until they are 18 and then let 
>them lose to a full world of risks...and then they are lost, or rather, 
>behind the rest of the world.  It seems that many hands on experiences 
>society avoids are out of pure risk control. How much leverage do 
>insurance groups have against the education system?
>Can anyone expand on this?
>Thanks
>Dave
>
>
>>
>>Hi Nick,  Chinese engineers are not close to the quality of American 
>>trained engineers as of yet.  However, China is short-circiuting the 
>>process as Stanford U did when it started.  It is buying whole 
>>universities/ setup's etc.  My oldest son is working on a $500,000,000 
>>project that transfers a whole school to a country flush with dollars.
>>
>>In the meantime, our best colleges of engineering  are finding applicants 
>>with great test scores who are floundering in engineering.  Folks from 
>>MIT, even UI and WSU are seeking the answer to why this is 
>>occuring.  They have collectively come to the conclusion and are 
>>recommending hands on-- learning by doing  at K-12 as the answer.  At MIT 
>>I am told by one of the folks who works in admisssions,  that they will 
>>take a farm boy with hands on experience over a student that has no experience.
>>
>>So, Dewey was correct and the present k-12 is not working well.  It is 
>>not a matter of the simple call for money.  With MSD at 168 days of 
>>instruction, there is no time for a traditional university lab 
>>setting.  No university would conduct chem lab the way MSD or most others 
>>do.  Ideally, the school year would be 200-220 days.  That does not mean 
>>sitting in a classroom.  Afternoons could be in lab, art, music, skills 
>>training, etc.
>>Classroom teachers would be well served since prep time would be greater. 
>>I know of a college prep all girls school in Seattle that builds a 
>>complete airplane each year and has outstanding SAT's with an average 
>>from 1410-1450 consistently.  In dental education, we are seeing great 
>>academic scores with little correlation to clinical skill at 
>>graduation.  Manual dexterity is the only positive correlation.  Dental 
>>Schools are now starting to recommend industrial arts prerequisties in 
>>such activities as metal
>>working, machining, wood crafts, art, etc.  jerry
>>
>>
>>At 10:20 PM 1/16/07, Nick Gier wrote:
>>>Greetings:
>>>
>>>It is a song of praise that I note that Chinese, Indians, and Russians, 
>>>mainly because of their solid credentials, are taking positions in our 
>>>universities that could be occupied by Americans, if they received 
>>>enough math and science in our schools and if they worked hard enough to 
>>>earn PhDs in these fields.
>>>
>>>Correctly for population, the Chinese graduate ten times more engineers 
>>>than we do.  We cannot compete unless we transform our educational 
>>>systems and our increasingly anti-intellectual culture.
>>>
>>>Nick Gier
>>>
>>>"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to human 
>>>affairs."
>>>--Ralph Waldo Emerson
>>>
>>>"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
>>>represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
>>>  --Mohandas Gandhi
>>>
>>>"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
>>>discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each 
>>>part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and 
>>>on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our 
>>>intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, 
>>>religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its 
>>>various parts." --Max Planck
>>>
>>>Nicholas F. Gier
>>>Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
>>>1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
>>>http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm
>>>208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
>>>President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
>>>http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm
>>>
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>
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