The Myth of the Meritocracy
Intelligence is a process, not a fixed, gene-determined, thing. This process begins very early on, before we can even really see it, and we therefore often confuse these early, invisible stages with some sort of innate giftedness. Then we test kids and report the results as innate differences — this one is gifted, this one [...]
MIT and FIRST Ally To Encourage STEM Education Careers
In an effort to inspire K-12 students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, as well as careers in the field, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has formed a strategic alliance with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit dedicated to building interest in STEM-related education via innovative [...]
Indiana School Teachers Must Major in the Subject They Teach
“…the new rules require those who teach grades 5-12 to earn baccalaureate degrees in the subjects they teach. This creates a better balance in teacher preparatory programs between coursework on how to teach and subject-specific training on what they will teach. Dr. James Fraser, senior vice president for programs for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship [...]
The Beauty and Joy of Computing (new intro CS class at UC Berkeley)
Dry. Difficult. Irrelevant. That’s how students in CS39N described computer science CS and programming BEFORE they took the introductory course. Fun. Easy to learn. Can relate to it. That’s what they were saying eight weeks into the class. It’s music to the ears of Dan Garcia, Brian Harvey, Colleen Lewis B.S.’05 EECS and George Wang, [...]
Don’t Set the Bar Too Low
Here is what I like to think: that Charles Ives wrote that piece as a lesson for me and people like me. His ego was such that he showed how good he was not by dazzling us with a complexity that creates distance and separates him from us, but with clarity that says, “You too [...]
A Manifesto for EduChange
Just one snippet of a great article on the eduFire blog: Imagine a teacher who simply decides to focus exclusively on getting extremely good at explaining the problems in one particular chapter of a popular textbook. Let’s say that they develop movies and games and anecdotes and all sorts of stuff to make the problems [...]
Creatively Educated = The New Untouchables
Great Op-Ed in the NYT about how we can’t fix our (American) economy until our children and workers are productive and valuable enough to be worth what it costs to live in a rich country. One of the driving goals behind GeekStack is to help more people want to make the world a better place [...]
What’s the Opposite of a Dumb Toy?
Deep inside my head, there is a reasoning and justification behind every major decision in GeekStack. For instance, my personal vision for the future is a culture where education is revered and valued, not because of external pressure but because people have found joy in the challenge of thinking and creating. But that’s way, way [...]
Open Source Textbook Company Serving 400 Colleges, 40,000 Students
This is only the beginning: Flat World is set to announce on Thursday that over 40,000 college students at more than 400 colleges are going to be using their digital, DRM-free textbooks in the Fall semester, up from 1,000 in 30 colleges in the Spring. Digital textbooks remain a nascent business and a tough market [...]
Indian Math Online Helps You Study Like Its Bangalore!
I’ve already mentioned 2 Million Minutes, and today I found out that Bob Compton, father of 2MM, has a startup called Indian Math Online. He had mentioned earlier that he found a tutor in India to work with his daughters but I had not idea it turned into a startup. Here’s the official blurb: Indian [...]
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