Education and R&D

The question of how to get more people innovating as scientists and engineers has plagued us since we started to lose our competitive advantage that we gained during World War II. We are still the world’s greatest innovators and still have the world’s best university system, however it is become increasingly strained and the demand for solid technical people has never been higher. I believe that the root of the problem lies in the US pre-college education system. People have always said that we need more qualified teachers and more money, while this is mostly true, I think that there are more drastic changes that need to be made. First I believe that we need a tracked education system in which people are separated according to ability. I know this sounds like a heresy but not everyone has to go to college, we will always need tradesmen and their role is society is very important as they contribute unique hands on skills that many of us do not have. So therefore we should have different levels in education starting probably in middle school, if not earlier, to prepare the kids for there different careers, which of course would not be set in stone, this is not the USSR. Leveling will allow everyone to be challenged, we all have known students who have great ability but only did the bare minimum to pass through because they did not find the work interesting.

After we have gone to a leveled system, we can greatly improve the efficiency of education so that everyone is constantly learning. Also we can introduce material to one level of students much more quickly than to the others, particularly in mathematics. While in other classes it seemed like we learned new stuff every year in elementary school, in math class we constantly learned the same arithmetic over and over because they did not believe that we were ready for Algebra until eighth grade. I think that this is totally incorrect; I believe that average smart kids can probably learn Algebra at sixth grade if not sooner. Even if this process is slower and we have to spend sixth and seventh grades devoted to algebra concepts, it will enable students to begin studying real science and technical fields. Up until high school most science that we were exposed to was just facts, like history. But once we incorporate real mathematics it becomes much different, where you have to find your own answers. This mathematics becomes important in science not necessarily because it enables kids to be introduced to science more quickly but because they can be introduced to the methods of science and analysis. With not to much more than algebra and elementary trig I can do almost any high school science experiment and that is where the true learning begins.

We must introduce kids to research and experimentation sooner. I know that most people hate doing high school science fair projects but I think that is mostly because they can not find an interesting topic for they do not possess the mathematical and scientific background to carry out an interesting experiment. More generally, I think that modern education in general does not develop skills which are useful for analysis that is why when we have a class which helps us develop these skills we love it for it is challenging and allows us to think and dive deeper into the world. That is where all school must go, while I am partial to science, all subjects must tend toward that realm. I think that every kid in the advanced level in high school should have a mandatory for term research project. This could range from my research interests in muon flux trends to looking at how cultural collisions in pack a society’s literature. Regardless of the specific type of research, it prepares students the think in ways which reflect real world thought. I did not go to school to learn how to do problem sets I went so that I can learn how to learn.