Thomas Bailey argues at the Fall 2005 Symposium on the “Social Costs of Inadequate Education” If, in the 1980s it was the multi-skilled German apprentice graduate or the continuously trained Toyota worker that appeared to threaten the international U.S. economic position, in the new century it is the Indian software engineer and Chinese entrepreneur.” This symposium provides useful references for speech and proposal writers addressing economic benefits and liabilities associated with education. (Yes, correlated with, not caused by schooling.)
Eve Larson offers an interesting summary titled Getting The Most Out Of A Tablet PC.
Graciela Chichilnisky comments about Princeton University’s president Shirley Tilghman‘s speech “The Role of Women in the Sciences: on the critical issue of encouraging, nurturing, and expanding the role of women in the sciences.” Dr. Tilghman is also professor of molecular biology.
According to Dr. Tilghman, The question we must ask as a society is … “how can we encourage more women with exceptional abilities to pursue careers in these fields?” Extensive research on the abilities and representation of males and females in science and mathematics has identified the need to address important cultural and societal factors.
This topic rings a bell for me now more than it did when Dr. Tilghman’s speech was originally reported. I heard a story this week about a bright math and science whiz 13 year old. Her mother, a public school superintendent, told her that being picked for the math league interscholastic competition team was not important. It’s just more of that “elite” stuff that really doesn’t matter. Oh me oh my! I know the people involved. This is probably a fair summary of the situation. In spite of Dr. Chichilnisky’s puzzling situation and the school superintendent’s observation, I’ll vote with Dr. Tilghman’s appeal for encouraging and nurturing young women like this 13 year old to explore math and science.