Books I Recommend

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Learn more about the food you eat than you've ever known before.

http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207007832&sr=8-1

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

Another in a wonderful series of books by Oliver Sacks on popular neurology. This time, amazing stories about people who have remarkable relationships to music because of neurological changes.

http://www.amazon.com/Musicophilia-Tales-Music-Oliver-Sacks/dp/1400040817/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207007937&sr=8-1

U.S. Education - continued

Maybe I was too harsh in my last post. There are many outstanding schools in this country, from pre-school to graduate school. There is a large and growing number of excellent universities, both public and private. Educational methods have improved and are now focused more on outcomes than theory. The problem is that there is a failure to transform and improve schools in the lower half - possibly the lower 60% - of the public school system, and most inner city schools continue to languish and fail. The environment in many of these schools is a reflection of our failure to extend an arm of mercy and hope to the both the working poor and the indigent poor. There are certain areas of all large metropolitan areas where we just don't want to go. It is dangerous to enter these areas, often. But rather than find solutions for the people who must live in such areas but are nevertheless willing to work to better their lives and rather than giving hope to their children, our society has thus far been unwilling to focus sufficient time, money and other resources needed to provide a ladder up out of such an environment. Generation after generation remains trapped in an environment of crime, failed hopes, and poverty. American society needs to begin following Europe's example and shift funds away from modern weapons systems and into building schools and offering teachers an attractive and financially rewarding life. We must transfer wealth to educating the poor, which is the best societal return on investment we can make. Not everyone should be trained for the professions and for academia. But we should begin to offer better technical education and enhanced, modern trade skills. Children who are growing up in violent social and failed family environments would benefit from safe, protected secular or religious environments filled with love, thoughtfulness and kindness. Increasingly, we need to reach out to people with little hope and give them our love, share our kindness and mercy. Let's take the best educational methods and make them available, with all of the necessary resources to make them work well, in our inner cities, as well as wealthy suburbs and private schools. Let's begin training in the trades and in technical skills to those who seem uninterested in formal academic education. Let's make sure that every child is prepared for college or for some form of employment that enables him or her to support a family.

U. S. Education and Research Trends

I am going to resume posting my thoughts on a variety of topics, mostly for my own satisfaction but also as a record of "what's on my mind." I have concluded that most people, including family members, care little for my thoughts or opinions, which tend to drift into areas uninteresting to them. For some reason, this hasn't deterred me from ruminating about these subjects, which I find both interesting and, in my judgment, important. So here goes.

I think a lot about the rapid decline of the United States, both as a thought leader and an economic power. It saddens me to see this happening. I can't do much about it and maybe I should be worrying and thinking about things over which I have some control, as Shirley is wont to tell me, but my mind keeps drifting back to the subject. We still have some of the greatest universities in the world. But we increasingly populate the research centers of our universities with foreign-born graduate students. It is good that they still want to come here, but increasingly, they return to their own countries rather than staying here, and increasingly, the countries they come from are developing ever more robust research universities and post-doctorate research centers of their own, which are becoming competitive with the research capabilities of the U.S. In a sense, we should be happy about this, since it is unrealistic to believe that we will always be able to attract the best and the brightest brains from around the world to do our cutting-edge research, but it seems to be a progressive trend that is worrisome to me. I hope that we will always be able to populate our best universities with the minds needed to keep both our basic and our technical, applied research product among the best in the world. But I worry that China and India, with their huge populations, will create research and academic environments that are more attractive than our universities. These countries already honor their scientists and mathematicians far more than we. In the United States, many bright and capable students are attracted to the law and to business and management and away from academia, science, engineering, and mathematics. Medicine is no longer as attractive to students as it was several generations ago. We do not honor or reward teachers in our country, with the result that both our public and private schools have continued declining in quality, language skills have declined nationwide, fewer people read and the quality of literature has deteriorated measurably during the last several generations. In short, our children are becoming less educated and less competitive vis a vis Europe and Asia.

I am proud of my own children and grandchildren. They have excelled in school and in their professions. But I am worried about the general population. I could be wrong and overly pessimistic, but I don't think so.