"Watson, come here! I need you" - These were reportedly the first words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant Thomas Watson on his "electrical speech machine", which would later be called the telephone. With this one sentence, Bell broke a seemingly insurmountable barrier of enabling live conversations over long distances. Until that time in 1876, the telegraph was the only thing that allowed long distance communications, that too only one way at a time. His new technology allowed the same infrastructure of installed telegraph wires to send live conversations. To the 19th century America, it probably sounded like magic. In a sense, he had broken the figurative "sound barrier".
Fast forward to last week. My entire family was watching the show "Jeopardy". Everyone was glued to the set for three days, since it was the new "Watson", a computer built by IBM, going up against two of the best human Jeopardy players ever. At the end of the first day, the computer was tied with one of the players. By the end of the second day, it was no contest. The computer pulled away rapidly and finished first. By the end of the two round tournament, Watson had won more money than the two remaining contestants combined. One of the other contestants, Ken Jennings, wrote a humorous remark in his Final Jeopardy answer welcoming the "new overlords", i.e., the computers.
So, what is so special about Watson? To get the answer, needs to go back to some history of computing. During my years at Intel, I had the opportunity to discuss speech recognition with leading edge researchers at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center in New York. They were heady times as Moore's Law routinely brought twice the computing power into the field every two years. By 2008, there were more than a billion transistors produced for every man, woman and child on this earth. And yet, the "sound barrier", so to speak, was not broken. What I mean is the ability of computers to understand natural language. The kind that movie goers watched in "2001 A Space Odyssey" as the astronaut commands computer HAL to "open the pod bay door, HAL", HAL rebuts him by saying "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that". To the human brain, this skill is learned by age two or three. And yet, training a computer to understand natural language has eluded scientists for a long time, until now. Watson's accomplishments are even more significant, in that the computer had to understand the quirks of the game, unusual contexts, and go up against two of the best players ever to play on TV. On the minus side, Watson only had to decipher the text, not the spoken words. But I am guessing integrating it is not that far off either, since many commercial programs like Dragon Naturally Speaking already convert spoken words to text.
What does this mean for the future? For now, at least, Watson is a supercomputer in IBM research lab that fills an entire room, and was programmed by some leading research scientists. However, the same can be said for the Eniac, the first computer ever built, circa 1950. The four function pocket calculators that had more processing power than the Eniac followed less than two decades later, using the newly invented transistor technology. Since then, the pace of innovation in computer hardware has accelerated to the point where we may have Watson like technology in our palms less than a decade from now. Elements of such technology are already in use and ubiquitous today. These can already be put to good use to help our students learn new skills and concepts much faster than traditional methods, especially in fields like mathematics.
These are exciting times to be consumers of technology, and the future looks even better.
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Monday, February 21, 2011
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Book Review: Why Don't Students Like School?
Rarely do I use my blog for a book review. As a matter of fact, this is the first time. But once in a while, a rare gem comes along that just screams "please tell others about it - it may save them in the future". This book is one of them.
It is authored not by a teacher or principal or a district official, although the title kind of implies it. It is written by Daniel Willingham, who has a doctorate from Harvard University in cognitive psychology. Why is this relevant? Simply because cognitive psychologists are true scientists, and their work is peer reviewed by other scientists before it gets published. Education schools are notorious for their lack of respect by the scientific community. Indeed, the recently published National Math Advisory Panel report observed that out of 17,000 education publications, less than 1% met the criteria for scientific validity. Enough said.
The book has a simple format. First, it is easily understood by an average reader. Each chapter introduces an assertion, followed by simple explanations and experimental evidence, followed by a Q&A section that has FAQs for teachers to modify their teaching techniques based on the assertion. What is novel here is that most of the assertions are exactly opposite of what the popular education school literature claims. I have listed a few nuggets below:
1. People are naturally curious, but they are not good thinkers: Why is this relevant? Because schools of education have focused on building "critical thinking" as one of their missions. However, if the brain is not designed well for thinking, it is good information to know. One needs to go to the following chapters to understand what is the secret of good critical thinkers.
2. Factual knowledge MUST precede skill: This is a corollary to the first assertion. Critical thinking needs factual knowledge first. Mathematical skills require mastery of multiplication facts. Throwing facts out just to concentrate on critical thinking is just not possible, because critical thinking is dependent on preceding factual knowledge. Indeed, critical thinkers tend to be only good in their narrow field of expertise (read - where they possess a lot of factual knowledge), and take a long time to gain the proficiency in a brand new field.
3. Memory is the residue of thought: This is a "duh" observation for me. What the mind dwells on the most, it tends to remember. This explains a lot, for example, why a few days after the test, those who cram for a test tend not to remember much of what they crammed. It may work to get a good grade on a test, but does not help retain what was learned.
4. New things are understood in the context of what we already know: This is the knowledge equivalent of "the rich getting richer". I had a boss once, a very smart fellow, who used to say "the brain is a difference engine". What he meant was that the brain internalizes what it knows with almost no effort, and leaves room to think about and interpret only the new information. So, those students who have been exposed to rich knowledge content early in their life tend to peel away from the rest of the pack very early. The author correlates this to the higher academic performance by those who come from families with educated parents, or higher socioeconomic background.
5. Proficiency requires practice: Another "duh" assertion. The author emphasizes that "It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice". Even experts need practice in basic skills sometimes, he says. I have observed that some mathematics curricula do not require extended practice, which is probably why they fail to produce results.
6. Cognition is fundamentally different in early and late training: Probably a corollary to assertion #4, although the author does not present it that way. A novice perceives new information in fundamentally different way than someone who is an expert. So, for example, emulating how scientists or mathematicians perform their jobs and trying to implement it in a classroom is bound to fail.
7. Children are more alike than different in terms of learning: This assertion completely refutes one of the axioms used by curriculum designers, based on the theory of multiple intelligences, and multiple learning styles. The author does not deny that there are multiple abilities, but "intelligence" is a term he reserves for how quickly the brain can process information. This fundamental difference between the author and many of the theories based on which our schools are designed, is tremendously significant. The author has one big thing going for him - results. Math curricula designed for direct instruction (a certain type of pedagogy) have consistently outperformed curricula designed around the theory of multiple intelligences and multiple learning styles.
8. Intelligence can be changed with sustained hard work: And you thought heavy lifting was only good for building six-pack abs. This assertion refutes another assumption prevalent in education schools - that intelligence is static. One is either born to be good in math or not. This has a huge implication of how students get rewarded. In a simple experiment, students who were praised for how hard they worked performed better in the long run than students who were praised for being "smart".
9. Teaching is a complex cognitive skill, and can be improved: In other words, follow the first eight rules, and one can be a good teacher. This assertion leaves a glimmer of hope for those who had subject knowledge in math, science or another area of specialty, but convinced themselves that they "just ain't got it" when it comes to teaching.
All in all, the book, at a short 165 pages, was very much worth the read. Highly recommended. Five stars! (out of five)
It is authored not by a teacher or principal or a district official, although the title kind of implies it. It is written by Daniel Willingham, who has a doctorate from Harvard University in cognitive psychology. Why is this relevant? Simply because cognitive psychologists are true scientists, and their work is peer reviewed by other scientists before it gets published. Education schools are notorious for their lack of respect by the scientific community. Indeed, the recently published National Math Advisory Panel report observed that out of 17,000 education publications, less than 1% met the criteria for scientific validity. Enough said.
The book has a simple format. First, it is easily understood by an average reader. Each chapter introduces an assertion, followed by simple explanations and experimental evidence, followed by a Q&A section that has FAQs for teachers to modify their teaching techniques based on the assertion. What is novel here is that most of the assertions are exactly opposite of what the popular education school literature claims. I have listed a few nuggets below:
1. People are naturally curious, but they are not good thinkers: Why is this relevant? Because schools of education have focused on building "critical thinking" as one of their missions. However, if the brain is not designed well for thinking, it is good information to know. One needs to go to the following chapters to understand what is the secret of good critical thinkers.
2. Factual knowledge MUST precede skill: This is a corollary to the first assertion. Critical thinking needs factual knowledge first. Mathematical skills require mastery of multiplication facts. Throwing facts out just to concentrate on critical thinking is just not possible, because critical thinking is dependent on preceding factual knowledge. Indeed, critical thinkers tend to be only good in their narrow field of expertise (read - where they possess a lot of factual knowledge), and take a long time to gain the proficiency in a brand new field.
3. Memory is the residue of thought: This is a "duh" observation for me. What the mind dwells on the most, it tends to remember. This explains a lot, for example, why a few days after the test, those who cram for a test tend not to remember much of what they crammed. It may work to get a good grade on a test, but does not help retain what was learned.
4. New things are understood in the context of what we already know: This is the knowledge equivalent of "the rich getting richer". I had a boss once, a very smart fellow, who used to say "the brain is a difference engine". What he meant was that the brain internalizes what it knows with almost no effort, and leaves room to think about and interpret only the new information. So, those students who have been exposed to rich knowledge content early in their life tend to peel away from the rest of the pack very early. The author correlates this to the higher academic performance by those who come from families with educated parents, or higher socioeconomic background.
5. Proficiency requires practice: Another "duh" assertion. The author emphasizes that "It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice". Even experts need practice in basic skills sometimes, he says. I have observed that some mathematics curricula do not require extended practice, which is probably why they fail to produce results.
6. Cognition is fundamentally different in early and late training: Probably a corollary to assertion #4, although the author does not present it that way. A novice perceives new information in fundamentally different way than someone who is an expert. So, for example, emulating how scientists or mathematicians perform their jobs and trying to implement it in a classroom is bound to fail.
7. Children are more alike than different in terms of learning: This assertion completely refutes one of the axioms used by curriculum designers, based on the theory of multiple intelligences, and multiple learning styles. The author does not deny that there are multiple abilities, but "intelligence" is a term he reserves for how quickly the brain can process information. This fundamental difference between the author and many of the theories based on which our schools are designed, is tremendously significant. The author has one big thing going for him - results. Math curricula designed for direct instruction (a certain type of pedagogy) have consistently outperformed curricula designed around the theory of multiple intelligences and multiple learning styles.
8. Intelligence can be changed with sustained hard work: And you thought heavy lifting was only good for building six-pack abs. This assertion refutes another assumption prevalent in education schools - that intelligence is static. One is either born to be good in math or not. This has a huge implication of how students get rewarded. In a simple experiment, students who were praised for how hard they worked performed better in the long run than students who were praised for being "smart".
9. Teaching is a complex cognitive skill, and can be improved: In other words, follow the first eight rules, and one can be a good teacher. This assertion leaves a glimmer of hope for those who had subject knowledge in math, science or another area of specialty, but convinced themselves that they "just ain't got it" when it comes to teaching.
All in all, the book, at a short 165 pages, was very much worth the read. Highly recommended. Five stars! (out of five)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Are we at the throes of losing our brainpower bailout?
Here is a news story that came over the wires today (text of one of the stories below):
http://www.mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=broadcast&broadcastid=114874
"America's loss is India and China's gain: US study
Washington, March 2 (IANS) Loss of tens of thousands of skilled immigrants to countries like India and China "is an economic catastrophe that will hurt US competitiveness for decades to come", says Vivek Wadhwa, lead author of a new study done at leading American universities.
Wadhwa and his team at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley universities uncovered several trends in their study on the plight of 1,203 skilled immigrants who came to the US from India and China to work or study and returned home:
* Most returnees originally came to the United States for career and educational opportunities. The majority of returnees cited career and quality of life as primary reasons to return to their home countries.
* The most common professional factor (86.8 percent of Chinese and 79.0 percent of Indians) motivating workers to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries.
* Returnees also believed that their home countries provided better career opportunities than they could find in America.
* Most respondents (53.5 percent of Indian and 60.7 percent of Chinese) said opportunities to start their own businesses were better in their home countries.
* Most respondents (56.6 percent of Indians and 50.2 percent of Chinese) indicated that they would be likely to start a business in the next five years.
* Being close to family and friends was a significant consideration in the decision to return home, with many returnees considering their opportunities to care for ageing parents to be much better in their home countries (89.4 percent of Indians and 78.8 percent of Chinese).
* Most of the Indian and Chinese immigrant subjects who returned to their home countries were relatively young (in their low-30s) and were very well educated. Nearly 90 percent held master's and PhD degrees, primarily in management, technology or science.
* Immigrants historically have provided one of America's greatest competitive advantages. Between 1990 and 2007, the proportion of immigrants in the US labour force increased from 9.3 percent to 15.7 percent, and a large and growing proportion of immigrants bring high levels of education and skill to the US.
* Immigrants have contributed disproportionately in the most dynamic part of the US economy - the high-tech sector - co-founding firms such as Google, Intel, eBay and Yahoo.
* In addition, immigrant inventors contributed to more than a quarter of US global patent applications. Immigrant-founded US-based companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006."
The story pretty much sums it up. We have been getting a brainpower bailout for the last few decades, and now the trend is reversing. Voluntarily (because the living conditions are improving elsewhere), or involuntarily (because the government is clamping down on H-1 visas), the brain drain appears to be in full force, with no end in sight.
Let us take a minute and think about why this reverse brain drain is taking place at all. For decades now, the vast majority of graduate students in the graduate schools in Science and Engineering have been foreign born. The distribution by nationality pretty much imitates world demographics, with China and India leading the numbers. When the rest of the US educated students were aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, businessmen and investment bankers, these immigrants were getting their masters and PhDs in science and engineering, and starting up companies in Silicon Valley that fueled most of the high tech boom in the 1990s, and continue to do so to this date (albeit at a much slower pace).
What does this mean for our efforts to "rebuild" as Obama would like to? Plenty. But first, I think we need to connect the dots, and understand how a nation becomes prosperous enough to support the standard of living that we have all come to love. Here is my attempt at laying out the process:
1. Any economy that aspires to dominate the markets needs some way to continuously come up with better products and services (and no, financial derivates do not fit the description of an "innovative product or service").
2. Not only that, it needs to quickly find a way to mass produce it faster, better, and cheaper than anyone else.
3. Then go back to #1 and do it over and over again.
Sounds simple, but the US economy has stumbled at every step in every endeavor it has undertaken. We used to have a lock on step #1 and step #2 in early 20th century. Then later on we lost the lead in step #2 to Japan, Taiwan and Korea, and lately, to China. Now we are at the threshold of losing step #1 to Japan, Korea, Finland, Singapore, and most recently, India and China. If we do lose, then we are forever second best, a position that no American will relish. So, I think it is important to understand how we became economic leaders, and what we can do to remedy the situation.
Here is how I connect the dots. In order to come up with more innovative products which will be successful in the marketplace, one needs to have a large pool of Research and Development from which to draw, and create new patents for new products. Unfortunately, using Google to find answers for "innovation" does not fit this criterion. We need more science and engineering graduates willing to go into research and development, and the R&D funding from public and corporate sources to help finance them. But we need to create those science and engineering graduates first. Which means we need more high school graduates excited about science and engineering. Which means we need more middle school graduates excited about science and math, and are willing and able to take challenging math and science courses in high school. Which means we need more elementary school graduates who know their math facts cold, are well versed in algebraic fundamentals like manipulating fractions and long division, and are excited to get into math competitions in middle schools. It means we need more middle school teachers who are math and science graduates themselves, and are excited about the prospect of educating a whole new cadre of nation builders. It means we need more elementary school teachers who have enough real math and science education in college to be able to teach elementary school kids real math, rather than the watered down version being pushed in school districts all over the nation. We need all the materials, the support structures, and most of all, the leadership to make it all happen.
I continue to be disappointed with the standard of material that is considered "acceptable" in today's education system. In my recent trip to India, I saw that a typical 10th grade graduate there is more likely to have a better education than a typical 12th grader in the US. Then I hear that "but our kids catch up in college" from some parents and teachers. I beg to disagree. Once a student graduates 12th grade with today's version of "reform" math, the doors will be forever shut for them in science and engineering. They most probably lost the battle in elementary school if they were not taught the basics well, and never realized it.
Recovery from a hole that we have dug so deep has to start somewhere. One of my friends often says "when you are in such deep doo doo, you better stop digging". I think it is a great place to start.
http://www.mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=broadcast&broadcastid=114874
"America's loss is India and China's gain: US study
Washington, March 2 (IANS) Loss of tens of thousands of skilled immigrants to countries like India and China "is an economic catastrophe that will hurt US competitiveness for decades to come", says Vivek Wadhwa, lead author of a new study done at leading American universities.
Wadhwa and his team at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley universities uncovered several trends in their study on the plight of 1,203 skilled immigrants who came to the US from India and China to work or study and returned home:
* Most returnees originally came to the United States for career and educational opportunities. The majority of returnees cited career and quality of life as primary reasons to return to their home countries.
* The most common professional factor (86.8 percent of Chinese and 79.0 percent of Indians) motivating workers to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries.
* Returnees also believed that their home countries provided better career opportunities than they could find in America.
* Most respondents (53.5 percent of Indian and 60.7 percent of Chinese) said opportunities to start their own businesses were better in their home countries.
* Most respondents (56.6 percent of Indians and 50.2 percent of Chinese) indicated that they would be likely to start a business in the next five years.
* Being close to family and friends was a significant consideration in the decision to return home, with many returnees considering their opportunities to care for ageing parents to be much better in their home countries (89.4 percent of Indians and 78.8 percent of Chinese).
* Most of the Indian and Chinese immigrant subjects who returned to their home countries were relatively young (in their low-30s) and were very well educated. Nearly 90 percent held master's and PhD degrees, primarily in management, technology or science.
* Immigrants historically have provided one of America's greatest competitive advantages. Between 1990 and 2007, the proportion of immigrants in the US labour force increased from 9.3 percent to 15.7 percent, and a large and growing proportion of immigrants bring high levels of education and skill to the US.
* Immigrants have contributed disproportionately in the most dynamic part of the US economy - the high-tech sector - co-founding firms such as Google, Intel, eBay and Yahoo.
* In addition, immigrant inventors contributed to more than a quarter of US global patent applications. Immigrant-founded US-based companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006."
The story pretty much sums it up. We have been getting a brainpower bailout for the last few decades, and now the trend is reversing. Voluntarily (because the living conditions are improving elsewhere), or involuntarily (because the government is clamping down on H-1 visas), the brain drain appears to be in full force, with no end in sight.
Let us take a minute and think about why this reverse brain drain is taking place at all. For decades now, the vast majority of graduate students in the graduate schools in Science and Engineering have been foreign born. The distribution by nationality pretty much imitates world demographics, with China and India leading the numbers. When the rest of the US educated students were aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, businessmen and investment bankers, these immigrants were getting their masters and PhDs in science and engineering, and starting up companies in Silicon Valley that fueled most of the high tech boom in the 1990s, and continue to do so to this date (albeit at a much slower pace).
What does this mean for our efforts to "rebuild" as Obama would like to? Plenty. But first, I think we need to connect the dots, and understand how a nation becomes prosperous enough to support the standard of living that we have all come to love. Here is my attempt at laying out the process:
1. Any economy that aspires to dominate the markets needs some way to continuously come up with better products and services (and no, financial derivates do not fit the description of an "innovative product or service").
2. Not only that, it needs to quickly find a way to mass produce it faster, better, and cheaper than anyone else.
3. Then go back to #1 and do it over and over again.
Sounds simple, but the US economy has stumbled at every step in every endeavor it has undertaken. We used to have a lock on step #1 and step #2 in early 20th century. Then later on we lost the lead in step #2 to Japan, Taiwan and Korea, and lately, to China. Now we are at the threshold of losing step #1 to Japan, Korea, Finland, Singapore, and most recently, India and China. If we do lose, then we are forever second best, a position that no American will relish. So, I think it is important to understand how we became economic leaders, and what we can do to remedy the situation.
Here is how I connect the dots. In order to come up with more innovative products which will be successful in the marketplace, one needs to have a large pool of Research and Development from which to draw, and create new patents for new products. Unfortunately, using Google to find answers for "innovation" does not fit this criterion. We need more science and engineering graduates willing to go into research and development, and the R&D funding from public and corporate sources to help finance them. But we need to create those science and engineering graduates first. Which means we need more high school graduates excited about science and engineering. Which means we need more middle school graduates excited about science and math, and are willing and able to take challenging math and science courses in high school. Which means we need more elementary school graduates who know their math facts cold, are well versed in algebraic fundamentals like manipulating fractions and long division, and are excited to get into math competitions in middle schools. It means we need more middle school teachers who are math and science graduates themselves, and are excited about the prospect of educating a whole new cadre of nation builders. It means we need more elementary school teachers who have enough real math and science education in college to be able to teach elementary school kids real math, rather than the watered down version being pushed in school districts all over the nation. We need all the materials, the support structures, and most of all, the leadership to make it all happen.
I continue to be disappointed with the standard of material that is considered "acceptable" in today's education system. In my recent trip to India, I saw that a typical 10th grade graduate there is more likely to have a better education than a typical 12th grader in the US. Then I hear that "but our kids catch up in college" from some parents and teachers. I beg to disagree. Once a student graduates 12th grade with today's version of "reform" math, the doors will be forever shut for them in science and engineering. They most probably lost the battle in elementary school if they were not taught the basics well, and never realized it.
Recovery from a hole that we have dug so deep has to start somewhere. One of my friends often says "when you are in such deep doo doo, you better stop digging". I think it is a great place to start.
Monday, December 1, 2008
On 21st Century Jobs
In K-12 education circles, has been fashionable in the past few years to talk about 21st century jobs. Every school district official I met had something to say about how his/her district was preparing students for “21st century jobs”. When I probe a little deeper, however, I get the feeling that the depth of understanding as to the nature of these jobs is very superficial. When asked, I get what sounds like a canned response “jobs involving creativity, critical thinking skills, learning how to learn”, and so on. That got me thinking about how our education system can deliver on the promise of true 21st century jobs.
Let me set the context. Our universities seem to be doing a great job of creating graduates that can compete globally. Others are catching up, but we seem to be still on top. Never mind that we have mostly foreign born science and engineering professors teaching in these universities, to mostly foreign born graduate students. For the moment, we can bask in the glory that we are #1. So, the problem of turning out college graduates for 21st century jobs does not appear to be with our institutes of higher education.
Now let us go a little deeper into the rabbit hole. What about our high school graduates? I have already written a piece about “How To Turn Out World Class High School Graduates” from the perspective of a customer. Clearly, there is a broken link between our K-12 system and its view of 21st century jobs, and our university system and its view of 21st century jobs. I will continue to assert that this is one broken link that we cannot afford to have. If it is not obvious now, it will be obvious a few more years into the greatest economic downturn since the last great depression. To peel this onion, we have to start with what we have been historically good at, and what we have left to chance.
Let us start with all the great ideas that we came up with. In no particular order, I can rattle off at least a dozen history-altering 20th century inventions credited to the US: the transistor, atomic power (for energy generation), a dozen or more computer languages, statistical process control, genetically engineered drugs, wireless technologies, the photocopy machine, the SLR camera, the TV, the VCR, ,the integrated circuit, the computer and the list goes on and on. One funny thing I noticed is that each one of these inventions is keeping hundreds of millions of people gainfully employed in well paying jobs IN OTHER COUNTRIES – in the 21st century. Let me elaborate some that I have listed:
The Transistor: Invented by William Shockley and Pearson in AT&T Bell Labs, (later confirmed by Brattain and Bardeen from the same labs) one of the premier private research labs, in the 1940s, for which they won a Nobel Prize. Attempts to commercialize the transistor in the US were unsuccessful, until Sony of Japan licensed it and perfected large-scale manufacture. Other Japanese companies followed suit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, there is no large-scale consumer electronics industry in the US to speak of. AT&T Bell Lab itself is no more, having been broken up into parts and sold off to foreign companies.
Nuclear Power for Energy: Peaceful uses of nuclear energy have been a good byproduct of the technology that literally started with a bang. But after 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl, the perception of this as a source of energy has declined. In the meantime, France, Japan, and developing countries like India have accelerated deployment to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The cure for bad technology, according to them, was better technology. Our answer: no technology. Now new nuclear plants have been built here in the last 30 years.
Computer Languages & the Internet Browser: This has been the single largest generator of high paying jobs worldwide. Universities and corporate research labs in the US led the development of almost all the ideas behind the connected world we have today. And yet the job growth in this field has fled this country. Most of the programmers are in other countries. No country has benefited from this than India, where one private university, the National Institute of Information Technology, turns out more programmers per year than the entire nation of the United States. Back in this country, I have not seen any recent math text books with Basic algorithms to solve problems. Instead, there are screen shots of calculators where students just punch buttons. Nor have I met many math teachers who can teach true programming. I wonder whatever happened to critical thinking we talk so much about? If the K-12 system does not create excitement in this field, who will supply the graduates to our university system?
Statistical Process Control: This is a concept that was lost on the US industry for a long time. Championed by US thinkers like Deming and Juran, these ideas never caught on, until Japan Inc. decided to use these techniques to improve their cheap, and shoddy product image. And improve they did. And the Koreans followed suit. Based on a deep understanding of mathematics and statistics, these techniques propelled Japanese car brands to the top of the quality charts. The US auto industry has always trailed in this aspect, and had to rely on laws and truck subsidies to survive. Part of why the “Big Three” are at the verge of bankruptcy is the failure to follow these concepts in the early stages. Waiting in the wings is Tata motors of India, with a car that sells in India for $2500, and gets 50 miles per gallon. They promise plenty of 21st century high paying jobs – in India.
Genetically Engineered Drugs: One other field that was pioneered in the US, and treated with suspicion by the public. While companies like Genentech seem to be doing quite well, the growth has come from other countries. Ranbaxy labs in India grew tremendously in the last few years, and is on the verge of passing global giants in this field. Recently, a Japanese company acquired a large stake in this company, probably since Japan’s aging population will needs a reliable supply of quality drugs.
Wireless Technologies: Spearheaded by the meteoric rise of the cell phone, this field is just getting started. Once the undisputed territory of US companies like Motorola, this industry is now dominated by Finnish and Korean companies. This is one industry that is forecasted to grow, in double digit percentages, well into the 21st century, providing high paying, high tech jobs for their employees. Meanwhile Motorola just announced that they were exiting the cell phone business. The only other US company that makes cell phones, Apple Computer, has only a few percent global market share. Interestingly, Korean and Finnish high school students routinely come in first or second in math and science in worldwide comparisons. Coincidence? I do not think so.
Do we see a trend here? Can we connect the dots? Needless to say the remaining industries such as cameras, the TV, the VCR (or DVD player), computers, and so on, are creating high paying 21st century jobs elsewhere in the world, while our domestic industries are turning into hollow sales and marketing organizations. One common thread in the places where such industries flourish is a razor sharp focus on creating the best mathematical and scientific talent in the world. I will assert that if our focus, especially in the K-12 education system, changes to match or better theirs, we will also create the same high pay, high growth environment in this country. The downside of not doing so will be an economy that we have today. Other than food and shelter, we are forced to buy what other countries make, with money borrowed from them. There will be jobs here too, but with subsistence wages and no benefits to speak of. Our system has been turning out high school graduates, 50% of who cannot pass an 8th grade math test. I will assert that it is a big part of what led to the mess we are in. The time to act was in 1983, when the “Nation at Risk” study came out. We failed to produce results then. The result I think has led to economic bondage of sorts, for our kids and grandkids, and no amount of apologizing is going to make their lives any better. I will maintain that only if we act like our lives depend on rectifying the current sorry state of math and science education can we redeem ourselves. One thing that we appear to be good at, is to come together at a time of crisis and commit to a solution that leads to common good. My hope is that most people who read this can make this connection, and drive changes in their schools and communities.
Let me set the context. Our universities seem to be doing a great job of creating graduates that can compete globally. Others are catching up, but we seem to be still on top. Never mind that we have mostly foreign born science and engineering professors teaching in these universities, to mostly foreign born graduate students. For the moment, we can bask in the glory that we are #1. So, the problem of turning out college graduates for 21st century jobs does not appear to be with our institutes of higher education.
Now let us go a little deeper into the rabbit hole. What about our high school graduates? I have already written a piece about “How To Turn Out World Class High School Graduates” from the perspective of a customer. Clearly, there is a broken link between our K-12 system and its view of 21st century jobs, and our university system and its view of 21st century jobs. I will continue to assert that this is one broken link that we cannot afford to have. If it is not obvious now, it will be obvious a few more years into the greatest economic downturn since the last great depression. To peel this onion, we have to start with what we have been historically good at, and what we have left to chance.
Let us start with all the great ideas that we came up with. In no particular order, I can rattle off at least a dozen history-altering 20th century inventions credited to the US: the transistor, atomic power (for energy generation), a dozen or more computer languages, statistical process control, genetically engineered drugs, wireless technologies, the photocopy machine, the SLR camera, the TV, the VCR, ,the integrated circuit, the computer and the list goes on and on. One funny thing I noticed is that each one of these inventions is keeping hundreds of millions of people gainfully employed in well paying jobs IN OTHER COUNTRIES – in the 21st century. Let me elaborate some that I have listed:
The Transistor: Invented by William Shockley and Pearson in AT&T Bell Labs, (later confirmed by Brattain and Bardeen from the same labs) one of the premier private research labs, in the 1940s, for which they won a Nobel Prize. Attempts to commercialize the transistor in the US were unsuccessful, until Sony of Japan licensed it and perfected large-scale manufacture. Other Japanese companies followed suit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, there is no large-scale consumer electronics industry in the US to speak of. AT&T Bell Lab itself is no more, having been broken up into parts and sold off to foreign companies.
Nuclear Power for Energy: Peaceful uses of nuclear energy have been a good byproduct of the technology that literally started with a bang. But after 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl, the perception of this as a source of energy has declined. In the meantime, France, Japan, and developing countries like India have accelerated deployment to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The cure for bad technology, according to them, was better technology. Our answer: no technology. Now new nuclear plants have been built here in the last 30 years.
Computer Languages & the Internet Browser: This has been the single largest generator of high paying jobs worldwide. Universities and corporate research labs in the US led the development of almost all the ideas behind the connected world we have today. And yet the job growth in this field has fled this country. Most of the programmers are in other countries. No country has benefited from this than India, where one private university, the National Institute of Information Technology, turns out more programmers per year than the entire nation of the United States. Back in this country, I have not seen any recent math text books with Basic algorithms to solve problems. Instead, there are screen shots of calculators where students just punch buttons. Nor have I met many math teachers who can teach true programming. I wonder whatever happened to critical thinking we talk so much about? If the K-12 system does not create excitement in this field, who will supply the graduates to our university system?
Statistical Process Control: This is a concept that was lost on the US industry for a long time. Championed by US thinkers like Deming and Juran, these ideas never caught on, until Japan Inc. decided to use these techniques to improve their cheap, and shoddy product image. And improve they did. And the Koreans followed suit. Based on a deep understanding of mathematics and statistics, these techniques propelled Japanese car brands to the top of the quality charts. The US auto industry has always trailed in this aspect, and had to rely on laws and truck subsidies to survive. Part of why the “Big Three” are at the verge of bankruptcy is the failure to follow these concepts in the early stages. Waiting in the wings is Tata motors of India, with a car that sells in India for $2500, and gets 50 miles per gallon. They promise plenty of 21st century high paying jobs – in India.
Genetically Engineered Drugs: One other field that was pioneered in the US, and treated with suspicion by the public. While companies like Genentech seem to be doing quite well, the growth has come from other countries. Ranbaxy labs in India grew tremendously in the last few years, and is on the verge of passing global giants in this field. Recently, a Japanese company acquired a large stake in this company, probably since Japan’s aging population will needs a reliable supply of quality drugs.
Wireless Technologies: Spearheaded by the meteoric rise of the cell phone, this field is just getting started. Once the undisputed territory of US companies like Motorola, this industry is now dominated by Finnish and Korean companies. This is one industry that is forecasted to grow, in double digit percentages, well into the 21st century, providing high paying, high tech jobs for their employees. Meanwhile Motorola just announced that they were exiting the cell phone business. The only other US company that makes cell phones, Apple Computer, has only a few percent global market share. Interestingly, Korean and Finnish high school students routinely come in first or second in math and science in worldwide comparisons. Coincidence? I do not think so.
Do we see a trend here? Can we connect the dots? Needless to say the remaining industries such as cameras, the TV, the VCR (or DVD player), computers, and so on, are creating high paying 21st century jobs elsewhere in the world, while our domestic industries are turning into hollow sales and marketing organizations. One common thread in the places where such industries flourish is a razor sharp focus on creating the best mathematical and scientific talent in the world. I will assert that if our focus, especially in the K-12 education system, changes to match or better theirs, we will also create the same high pay, high growth environment in this country. The downside of not doing so will be an economy that we have today. Other than food and shelter, we are forced to buy what other countries make, with money borrowed from them. There will be jobs here too, but with subsistence wages and no benefits to speak of. Our system has been turning out high school graduates, 50% of who cannot pass an 8th grade math test. I will assert that it is a big part of what led to the mess we are in. The time to act was in 1983, when the “Nation at Risk” study came out. We failed to produce results then. The result I think has led to economic bondage of sorts, for our kids and grandkids, and no amount of apologizing is going to make their lives any better. I will maintain that only if we act like our lives depend on rectifying the current sorry state of math and science education can we redeem ourselves. One thing that we appear to be good at, is to come together at a time of crisis and commit to a solution that leads to common good. My hope is that most people who read this can make this connection, and drive changes in their schools and communities.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Of soccer, baseball, and chess parents
My family moved to Oregon in the year 2002. My wife and I had 3 kids in tow, one in high school, and two in elementary school. Education and extra curricular activities, of course, were high on our list. We had done our homework, calling the school districts, having phone meetings, from California, the whole works. We even made the decision to buy our home based on the schools, as most parents do. Besides academics, our kids were active in soccer and chess, so we found a school with a chess club close by. The club had many parents who were very involved. As a matter of fact, all chess lessons were taught by parents in the evening. Many parents attended the classes along with their kids, so they could learn. I had not paid much attention to the demographics of the club, but it appeared to me that more and more members were coming from immigrant families. As time went by, one thing led to another, and I led the start up of a new statewide organization in Oregon to promote chess competitions, called the Oregon Scholastic Chess Federation. And again, in our first two state championships, I saw more and more immigrant families bringing their children to the state championships.
In parallel, my wife and I did our duty as soccer parents also. My wife and I signed up as volunteer coaches, and did our duty as soccer parents. Again, there were a disproportionate number of immigrant's kids in our soccer teams, albeit not as lopsided in chess. Then my son, then a fifth grader, expressed an interest in joining a baseball team. I had no clue about baseball, but I had played enough cricket in my life to understand his interest. We signed him up for a team. I had not paid attention earlier in the season, but as time went on, I saw hardly any immigrant's children on the team.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I was at the Portland Chess Club, where my kids were playing in their monthly tournament. I bumped into a professor from U of O, who had driven his son all the way from Eugene to play. He and I were killing time, talking about our common experiences. It turns out he was an immigrant from Scandinavia. He brought up the observation that in all the chess events he has been to in Oregon, he sees more and more kids of immigrants. To a lesser extent, in Soccer. In Europe, of course, he was just used to seeing Europeans in both events. He wondered, where all the native born kids were. Surely, there are enough of them in the same economic brackets and similar leisure times. What do they do on the weekends?
His last remark took me back to my son's baseball years, where most kids came from middle to upper middle class families. The coach called his son "A-Rod", and drilled the team like an army drill master. He yelled and screamed at kids who did not perform up to his expectations, but I did not see any parents complain. When I thought he was being a little over the top, I would quietly bring it up with other parents, and they would say something like "oh, the kids need to know it is rough out there. He means well. Besides, it builds character." I thought, all this to make sure someone knows how to handle a fastball? Wouldn't it make more sense for his kid to take up an activity, like chess, that has been proven to build intelligence? After all, it has some immediate benefits like helping them do well in school. In many conversations I would strike with the parents about chess, they would either change the subject, or dismiss it summarily. I felt as though academic and intellectual achievement was either not valued, or was just plain taken for granted.
Back to the present, the professor and I parted with a shared understanding that there are some deep cultural divides that separate first generation immigrants from the rest of the population. When I came home, I saw the day's newspaper. I saw that the top two National Spelling Bee contestants were children of Indian immigrants. I said to myself - yes, the cultural divide is alive and well.
In parallel, my wife and I did our duty as soccer parents also. My wife and I signed up as volunteer coaches, and did our duty as soccer parents. Again, there were a disproportionate number of immigrant's kids in our soccer teams, albeit not as lopsided in chess. Then my son, then a fifth grader, expressed an interest in joining a baseball team. I had no clue about baseball, but I had played enough cricket in my life to understand his interest. We signed him up for a team. I had not paid attention earlier in the season, but as time went on, I saw hardly any immigrant's children on the team.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I was at the Portland Chess Club, where my kids were playing in their monthly tournament. I bumped into a professor from U of O, who had driven his son all the way from Eugene to play. He and I were killing time, talking about our common experiences. It turns out he was an immigrant from Scandinavia. He brought up the observation that in all the chess events he has been to in Oregon, he sees more and more kids of immigrants. To a lesser extent, in Soccer. In Europe, of course, he was just used to seeing Europeans in both events. He wondered, where all the native born kids were. Surely, there are enough of them in the same economic brackets and similar leisure times. What do they do on the weekends?
His last remark took me back to my son's baseball years, where most kids came from middle to upper middle class families. The coach called his son "A-Rod", and drilled the team like an army drill master. He yelled and screamed at kids who did not perform up to his expectations, but I did not see any parents complain. When I thought he was being a little over the top, I would quietly bring it up with other parents, and they would say something like "oh, the kids need to know it is rough out there. He means well. Besides, it builds character." I thought, all this to make sure someone knows how to handle a fastball? Wouldn't it make more sense for his kid to take up an activity, like chess, that has been proven to build intelligence? After all, it has some immediate benefits like helping them do well in school. In many conversations I would strike with the parents about chess, they would either change the subject, or dismiss it summarily. I felt as though academic and intellectual achievement was either not valued, or was just plain taken for granted.
Back to the present, the professor and I parted with a shared understanding that there are some deep cultural divides that separate first generation immigrants from the rest of the population. When I came home, I saw the day's newspaper. I saw that the top two National Spelling Bee contestants were children of Indian immigrants. I said to myself - yes, the cultural divide is alive and well.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
A Gift from our Fathers
This is a reprint from a message I sent out to Where'sthemath group. There is a lot being said about the rise of China and India as emerging economic superpowers, but most articles I read appear to me as the modern equivalents of "Five Blind Men and an Elephant" story. I think I can relate to at least the US and Indian cultures, having spent roughly half of my life in each. Here are my observations about the cultural differences.
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I recently got a copy of the video "Two Million Minutes" and watched it. I have eight nieces and nephews who go to school in India, and I can get a real time comparison of what they do in school as well. It is funny how often when I call my relatives in India, the "hot news" is what the latest report card is of each one of them. Then they quickly switch to how hard their kids are studying to get into the best colleges. They are not well off, and are strictly middle class. All save one are studying to be engineers. The one who is not is in Accounting and Finance. All require top notch math skills.
Having observed two of the three cultures discussed in this video most of my life, I have arrived at some theories as to why this is the case. Both China and India started with a clean slate almost at the same time. Mao Zedong's communist party came to power in the mid 1940's, about the same time as India became independent. As if by coincidence, about the same time, the US became the sole industrial power left standing after 6 years of WWII. This country received its greatest gift almost by a process of elimination.
Then a funny thing happened. Those who were completely wiped out, namely Germany and Japan, overcame hurdles never before considered conquerable to build the most efficient economies of the world. Several others such as Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, followed suit. The underlying culture was of saving and sacrifice. Families lived on a pittance just so they could make goods that would sell in the rich countries. They saved for everything. Nothing was bought on credit. Even homes. Foreign currency was jealously shielded from consumption oriented goods, and was only used to purchase capital goods. See a pattern here? The same underlying culture prevailed in China and India, but two key elements were lacking - capital creation, and open markets. Finally, when the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union collapsed, the two large economies capitulated and allowed open markets, and the ascent of the Chinese and Indian economies began. The key elements of savings (which leads to internal capital formation) and sacrifice (which allows the next generation to be better than the current one), are both paying off handsomely.
Did the US get to where it is without these values? Look hard enough, and you will find them buried in the economic history of this country. During the great depression, there was so much disenchantment with everything borrowed, that the savings rate soared. The values of thrift, which were forgotten during the roarin' 20's, again came into fashion. However, the real test came when WWII broke out when people were asked to sacrifice a lot more. This time it included human lives. Both men and women joined to build the largest industrial capacity of any nation in the world. I think this great act of sacrifice by this country's elders was a gift that kept on giving. The post war generations have lived better than their forefathers, and the rest of the world, but this gift is now close to being exhausted. If I were to draw an analogy, the depression and the war were like stocking of a pond with so much fish that future generations had to just reel them in. But when the fish are dangerously close to being exhausted, there is hardly anyone left with the perspective and skills needed to restock the pond. It is as if people are wishing it was a bad dream and it would just go away if you waited long enough.
Now my question is (and for which I have not found an answer), how in the heck would this country get notions of savings and sacrifice into peoples psyches again? Will we need another depression? Another global conflict? Or are we collectively smart and wise enough to change without such drastic events? I think there are enough people who can see what is going on, and a need for this change in psyche. When JFK sad "ask not...." he was tapping into this notion. Maybe that is why Obama is so popular, because his message is about "bringing out the best one can give", rather than the current prevailing sentiment of "taking the most one can take".
Sudhakar
----------------------------------
I recently got a copy of the video "Two Million Minutes" and watched it. I have eight nieces and nephews who go to school in India, and I can get a real time comparison of what they do in school as well. It is funny how often when I call my relatives in India, the "hot news" is what the latest report card is of each one of them. Then they quickly switch to how hard their kids are studying to get into the best colleges. They are not well off, and are strictly middle class. All save one are studying to be engineers. The one who is not is in Accounting and Finance. All require top notch math skills.
Having observed two of the three cultures discussed in this video most of my life, I have arrived at some theories as to why this is the case. Both China and India started with a clean slate almost at the same time. Mao Zedong's communist party came to power in the mid 1940's, about the same time as India became independent. As if by coincidence, about the same time, the US became the sole industrial power left standing after 6 years of WWII. This country received its greatest gift almost by a process of elimination.
Then a funny thing happened. Those who were completely wiped out, namely Germany and Japan, overcame hurdles never before considered conquerable to build the most efficient economies of the world. Several others such as Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, followed suit. The underlying culture was of saving and sacrifice. Families lived on a pittance just so they could make goods that would sell in the rich countries. They saved for everything. Nothing was bought on credit. Even homes. Foreign currency was jealously shielded from consumption oriented goods, and was only used to purchase capital goods. See a pattern here? The same underlying culture prevailed in China and India, but two key elements were lacking - capital creation, and open markets. Finally, when the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union collapsed, the two large economies capitulated and allowed open markets, and the ascent of the Chinese and Indian economies began. The key elements of savings (which leads to internal capital formation) and sacrifice (which allows the next generation to be better than the current one), are both paying off handsomely.
Did the US get to where it is without these values? Look hard enough, and you will find them buried in the economic history of this country. During the great depression, there was so much disenchantment with everything borrowed, that the savings rate soared. The values of thrift, which were forgotten during the roarin' 20's, again came into fashion. However, the real test came when WWII broke out when people were asked to sacrifice a lot more. This time it included human lives. Both men and women joined to build the largest industrial capacity of any nation in the world. I think this great act of sacrifice by this country's elders was a gift that kept on giving. The post war generations have lived better than their forefathers, and the rest of the world, but this gift is now close to being exhausted. If I were to draw an analogy, the depression and the war were like stocking of a pond with so much fish that future generations had to just reel them in. But when the fish are dangerously close to being exhausted, there is hardly anyone left with the perspective and skills needed to restock the pond. It is as if people are wishing it was a bad dream and it would just go away if you waited long enough.
Now my question is (and for which I have not found an answer), how in the heck would this country get notions of savings and sacrifice into peoples psyches again? Will we need another depression? Another global conflict? Or are we collectively smart and wise enough to change without such drastic events? I think there are enough people who can see what is going on, and a need for this change in psyche. When JFK sad "ask not...." he was tapping into this notion. Maybe that is why Obama is so popular, because his message is about "bringing out the best one can give", rather than the current prevailing sentiment of "taking the most one can take".
Sudhakar
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