tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post2381245404047378139..comments2024-03-19T03:14:04.172-04:00Comments on Rabett Run: Pernicious ProgressEliRabetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-15858719748797940412013-09-15T16:28:49.730-04:002013-09-15T16:28:49.730-04:00One of my colleagues, a mathematics professor orig...One of my colleagues, a mathematics professor originally from India, told me his motivations as a youngster:<br />"For me, mathematics was a way out of poverty!"<br /><br />Quite a few Americans don't have such a strong motivation. OR they weigh the years of training required against the financial rewards, and decide it's a better deal to go to business school or law school or medical school, instead of grad school in sciences.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09575837647825433144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-79714560142333106832013-09-15T11:23:14.012-04:002013-09-15T11:23:14.012-04:00One thing is certain: STEM educated folks are very...One thing is certain: STEM educated folks are very impressed with their own superior thinking skills and superiority in general.<br /><br />Physicists are a perfect example (as are computer "scientists", who live in a virtual world that has nothing to do with the real one)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-53086472333988276512013-09-15T07:19:44.834-04:002013-09-15T07:19:44.834-04:00I realised, back in 2002 when I as in Sheffield, t...I realised, back in 2002 when I as in Sheffield, that when you have to have a 'science adventure centre', you're fucked when it comes to STEM. <br />If enough people are employed in stem type jobs, so that children have an aunt/ uncle/ neighbour/ friends father etc etc who goes out to work doing stem stuff, then they grow up with at least an awareness of it, which surely helps in preparing them for such work, as well of course as home projects, garage workshops etc. <br />But when they don't, you need a 'science adventure centre' to try and get them interested, as if a couple of hours a year playing with a jcb arm or a virtual reality body somehow makes up for not seeing stem subjects being used in real life. <br /><br />guthrienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-36929475090865250302013-09-13T22:18:42.149-04:002013-09-13T22:18:42.149-04:00James Cliborn --- Yes, provided it is done (more o...<b>James Cliborn</b> --- Yes, provided it is done (more or less) the CalTech way: one humanities course each and every quarter.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-26059256921243918512013-09-13T19:41:27.231-04:002013-09-13T19:41:27.231-04:00"while this facility -used- to be the premier...<i>"while this facility -used- to be the premiere "vocational-technical" school in the system, the only signs of that history are the form of stumps of heavy machine tools once bolted to the floors prior to the rise of STEM."</i><br /><br />The irony is that trade jobs are arguably some of the best in many regards.<br /><br />They can't be outsourced (eg, like engineering) , they are challenging (mentally and physically), are often well-paying (your plumber probably makes as much as many engineers), and often very satisfying (trades-people provide an invaluable service to our society).<br /><br />As a society, we are really shooting ourselves in the foot by "closing up shop".<br /><br />And the biggest irony of all is that we have a created a society of "knowledge workers" who actually don't know how to think for themselves, something which learning a trade teaches you to do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-72323097584939453672013-09-13T13:13:47.061-04:002013-09-13T13:13:47.061-04:00What the two previous commenters said, plus, havin...What the two previous commenters said, plus, having a STEM education is without a doubt the best preparation any person can have for tackling life.Why Hockey Sticks are Truehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10060543508611206166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-11839993956033215532013-09-13T01:06:21.028-04:002013-09-13T01:06:21.028-04:00David's remarks about Washington the state cal...David's remarks about Washington the state call to mind the constant lip-service paid to STEM at the primary and secondary educational level, the portion of the educational ecosystem providing scholastic metabolites (students) to big empty stomachs at the level discussed by the Head Bunny. If no plankton or krill with suitably equipped brains are emerging from high schools, then certainly the Big Mouths will have to import their food from overseas. <br /><br />My own educational food unit (son) is moving on from high school to university. For my part, I'm sticking with volunteering at his old high school, as a mentor with the robotics club. Why? Because while this facility -used- to be the premiere "vocational-technical" school in the system, the only signs of that history are the form of stumps of heavy machine tools once bolted to the floors prior to the rise of STEM. In an age when the archetypal home garage or workshop is a vanishing feature, schools also have forgotten about the necessity of actually touching and changing material things in order to have a fully integrated civil society.<br /><br />Not to put too fine a point on it, the students brave enough to enter the robotics club frequently resemble something akin to executives spilled during a crash from an aircraft carrying a large quantity of tools and materials in the cargo hold, uninjured but completely helpless to use the things they find scattered around them. "What's this?" they say, holding a saw, or a drill motor. The ignorance of made things and how they're created is almost total. These are the curious and motivated kids; the vast majority of the student body are trussed into a life consisting purely of tapping and swiping, waiting for something made by somebody else to carry them. They are Eloi, living at the whim of Morlocks.<br /><br />STEM as it's visible at the primary and secondary school levels seems to operate on the premise that we can purely think our way out of any problem, or that a problem is solved once we understand it, or perhaps even that doing more than simply thinking is to become a member of an inferior caste. As with so many districts, ours here mistakes training people to buy and use Microsoft products for technology education. Engineering seems to be entirely missing; ask a student to draw two simple machines and they'll show you a thing that makes espresso and another that dispenses money with the swipe of a card but you won't see a lever or a screw. You also won't get a drawing that's any good for conveying information to a person interested in replicating the machine under discussion; the depiction will be highly abstract.<br /><br />Indigenous, homegrown undergraduates capable and interested in engineering careers who actually have touched engineered artifacts at the fundamental level seem purely an accidental byproduct of the food metabolite pyramid. If other countries can still produce this kind of food then what else are universities supposed to eat?dbostromhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13885863615343906724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-37693448750680087002013-09-13T00:16:32.091-04:002013-09-13T00:16:32.091-04:00With regard to the TE part of STEM, industry in th...With regard to the TE part of STEM, industry in the state of Washington cannot find enough junior engineers to hire from within the state; the University of Washington and Washington State University are full up of wanna be engineers and both schools have decent retention rates in the engineering programs. Yet, there simply are not enough and so companies recruit elsewhere as well as intensely at the two engineering schools.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.com