CrossRoads 2017

we could think of no better way to close  out this amazing pot provoking  conference

in this conversations we've  had with all of you and to

that to have  our next speaker who really does not  need

any introduction if you're not  familiar with him

I would recommend you  look up his Wikipedia page and

and it  goes on for quite a while so I will not  go

into a lengthy introduction  ladies and gentlemen Alan Kay

great  that's the best introduction

I've had a  long time because

you know a long one  doesn't help to talk so

lots

of people  are really engaged

now in trying to get  computing to

children that's great  because I

got that itch and

urge for  lifetime from the first time I met

  Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon in

  1968 and when I

was in grad school

I  have been a professional

programmer  before that

I knew

when I saw what  seeing I was doing what he

xcept I'd never thought of it before  that

this way of using a computer this  these

properties of how certain

kinds of  mathematics and certain kinds of ideas

  can be lifted

by computing and also

  brought to much much earlier minds much

  much younger Minds those things blew

mind  and since

Cynthia is sitting here she'll  remember that car

ride that we had

first day because Seymour and I were  talking around like mad he

was driving  he was a terrible driver imagine

what he  was like piloting a plane and

and I was  sitting in the backseat and Seymour

was  talking excitedly to  driving

the car and Cynthia was trying  to get

him to look at look at the road  so that was the that was the

first  encounter what's going on right

now is  great on

the engagement side of things

  and it is also

having this kind of  spread out effect

that happens

when  things get popular and people get  enthusiastic

and so their attempts to  find fits

in various ways and

one of the  ways of measuring things particularly

in  our society is getting things done by

  next week or next month or next year or

so and so a lot of things have been  going on that

are essentially looking at  local conditions and

trying to do  something that if

you look at some of  the standards in science that are just  now

getting looked at in States

some of  those standards have been there for 20  years and

some of those standards have  been wrong for 20 years

  so once something gets in there

  it's like chance erosion digs a

ravine and precision you've got a Grand  Canyon and it's not

easy to move and so  I thought for this talk

instead of  complaining like I usually do about this

  might be interesting to look at from

different point of view which is  long-range view as

we are in the in the

  20th century

21st down the

opposite  isn't it and

we as I said said

here  children born this year

will be 83 at  the end of the century and

this is  probably the most interesting century

  from the standpoint of human beings  being

able to affect the conditions  around them both positively

and  negatively and so I thought

wow that's a  not a bad way of

trying to motivate  education for

  in slow-moving systems like

education  systems that might

as well be about  things that are important not

just about  jobs but about other kinds of things and

  so that's what this this talk is about

and we

have the perennial problems of  gazillions of

things to learn we don't  know what they should be

from year to  year and

we have this idea

of ways

of  helping people learn these

come up over and over again and they go  at

least back to the time of Socrates if  not long

before and we have questions of  why

so I'd

like to first look at what

we  should learn in basic idea

here is in an  hour talk I can't

possibly do justice to  this I'm not going to

try I'm going to  try and gesture use what I think

you  already know and understand to

just  bring these things to the front of our

  our thinking again

and one of these  things

actually I

forgot to say one  thing there

and that is

powerful ideas  when

we get fluent in them are like  adding

new brain tissue that nature  didn't give us it's

worthwhile thinking  about what it means

to get fluent in  something like calculus and to

realize  that a normal person fluent

in calculus  can out think Archimedes

right if you're  fluently if

you have to Scrabble around  at it if

you're fluent at reading you  can

cover more ground than anybody in  antiquity could

in an oral culture  you're not fluent in reading you're  still in an

oral culture so part of the  idea is there

are powerful ideas and  there are these fluencies fluency

doesn't mean you're a pro it doesn't  mean you're making money half

you're above  so we're the mechanics

of doing it are  not in your way

and you're able to use  this as I

call these brain ones every

time we learn something powerful to  brain lift and

one of my favorite  stories which

we know partly because  Einstein wrote

about it in his later  years was that he was sick

with the  measles at five years old and

to keep  the kid amused

his father gave him a  compass and

of course compass compasses  are fascinating

because they do somehow  point

in the same direction no matter  what you do

to them and people have used  them for thousands of years for  navigating

but Einstein said this was  the

first of a few really

profound  moments in his life

because what he said  was

something deep something behind

  things something deeply hidden so

didn't get hooked on what you could do  with the compass

he was able to ignore

  which most people can't but he was able

to ignore the thing that was right in  front of him essentially

to look at the

  the compasses shadow and

so

when we  think about what we're trying to

do with  computing we want to think about what  part

of more learning should be about  using the compass

and what apart

should  be about the shadow part of it is there  is a shadow

the shadow of the compass

is  a lot of things pretty much

our modern  world isn't shadow of this compass

because it was the compass that was  first used

to show that electric  currents

generated magnetic fields that  could swing

the compass and he swung a  compass a big

compass in the right way  you could generate electricity so

that  gave us motors and generators and the

rest of the 19th century the 20th  century proceeded

from there  so this is enormous theory of relativity  came

out of the compass because a theory  or special theory

of relativity was  about dealing with Maxwell's equations  which

were about precisely what the  interactions

of the electric and  magnetic

fields are about so

often in  something

that is really fun really  interesting and really engaging

there's  something that is completely missed

so a  good question

for people who are dealing  with computing is

what if what's  important about computing is deeply

  hidden I can

tell you as far as

this one  vishal was here vishal

runs an enormous  company as you all know

least a hundred thousand programmers  right yeah

so most of the

computing that  is done in most of industry completely

  misses most of what's interesting about

  computing so they are basically at

a  first level of exposure to it and

  they're trying to optimize that think  about that

because that was okay fifty

  years ago because

businesses weren't  that interested in computing and so they

didn't have a huge influence on  universities

now they do now a

lot of  university courses are about vocational  training

for business now

what we learn  in an AP

course in high school just  happens to be taken

from what most  universities think of first

year and  computing should be that's influenced by

business we've got this trickle-down  effect

of stuff that is actually not  good for

anybody who's really trying to  learn computing it is

good for jobs so  thing

to think about is if you if we're  saying K through

12 and not just 10 11  12

we need a completely different set

of  ideas for starting

with K say up to the  8th  there's

a chance of getting out of this

  potential wealth that computing

has been  trapped in commercially that is  influencing

everything  it is really tricky because

now the  children want because

they want to be  like adults they want to

learn what  adults are doing whether adults are  doing anything

reasonable or not so

this  is a very tricky thing to think about

so

take a look at this this guy knows  this

truck could fall over and crush

him  but he also knows the person in there

being a hero

few

percent of any  situations

like this will turn heroes

good look at all the reference people do  they could be in

there helping but now  we've got

their out an old

okay so

humans are able

to respond when  there's a disaster in

this recent awful  Manchester

bombing the homeless people  jumped in to

help people

just do because  the way

we're set up genetically is when  things

are vivid enough when they're  writing assignments when they're  life-threatening

and to people that we  don't even know will respond

it's a  wonderful thing

but we just

can't get  our imagination to be vivid enough

deal with things we aren't genetically  set up for

especially slow changes  especially things that hardly

ever  happen this is New Orleans

after Katrina  well yeah was the hurricane but

guess  what New Orleans is years

and years ago  New Orleans was fitted with pumps to

  pump all the water out the only

pumps  that actually worked at all

during the  Katrina thing we're the first ones

put  in in 1912 by Baldwin

wood one of my  heroes he was

the guy who all said that  he had the basic idea of the pumps that  the

that they used in Holland

before  they built the barrier they're

the all  the newer pumps were never really

tested  in there and they failed within a couple  of hours and

so we got this

absolutely  could have been prevented like

so many  other things but people

sprang into  helping

people here after the disaster  but

we have a hard time dealing with  disasters

before they happen it's not  that we can't

believe in things or have  vivid imaginations

we believed in things  like angels for

hundreds of thousands of  years and gods and

demons

no problem we  dream

about them  which is

get rid of Bible

says - and

why  not cats as witches this is

a engraving  from the great cat cat

massacre in Paris  in the 17th century if

you're interested  in weird human history

there's a book  called the great cat massacre and it's

  about a large and

called extraordinary popular delusions  and

the madness of crowds which I  commend to you of

things that people  have gotten interested

in and foamed  over and lynched

in this case they  killed more

than a hundred thousand cats  in Paris

and of course they got a bunch  of rats for their

reward a little bit  later but

doesn't matter there are  certain kinds of things we

can really  imagine and the

problem is we can't  imagine things like this

and I was

on  actually an imagination commission

this  is an environmental research

and  education Directorate at NSF

actually  doesn't it's

not like the computer  science Directorate it doesn't have

to  have a staff this is a directory called  a

matrix directory directory tor a  phantom directory

it's set up

as an  interdisciplinary group

of members of  other advisory

boards in this case the

  lingua franca of this group was

systems  so they're a geologist

  there were oceanographers I was

because I was a biologist and also a  computer scientist

and the job of this  group is to write books for the  President

and maybe know more but

when I  was there we we

did write books for the  President and for Congress and

this is  one we wrote while we were there trying

  to explain to government

just how  delicate

some systems that seemed to be  stable actually

are  and just

how careful you have to be and

  we led with

something didn't have to do  with the climate because

it was  controversial them as it is now we lived

with something that it's absolutely  known to be man-made which is

dead zones  in the oceans okay and

anything about this you know there's a  dead zone twice

the size of Florida  outside of New Orleans

that is made from

fertilizer runoff on the Mississippi  River in the Chattahoochee

Basin but  that

gives rise to algae the algae  eventually get rid

of the oxygen and you  have this enormous dead

zone and in the  ocean why hasn't

it been fixed still  going on the answer is the

United States  has no governing

body for dealing with  rivers

every river in the United States  is dealt with

half out to the middle  from

one shore by whoever is on that  short out to the middle from

shore and by state to state so if you  look at the Mississippi

River it borders  on a gazillion

states none of whom could  ever get together just

just because  things were getting poison

biting and it  was inconvenient for the farmers

and you  know the story so there's an interesting  system

story that something that was  completely understood

of what the  problem was completely understood that  how to fix

it was easy to fix it

couldn't get through the political  morass

because there wasn't a  pre-existing Authority

and

so one of the  ways we used to

try and get Congress to  pay attention

and

we say look you know this seems to  be stable

and look if I poke it

comes  back pretty resilient takes

a lot of  effort to

fix a lot of effort to poke it  so it's probably safe

but you know what

  if the system is like this

notice in  both cases

once that thing topples

the  amount of energy needed

to get it to  either of the previous equilibria is

  maybe a hundred times or a thousand

times more than it took the toppling  pick the

toppling is harmonic you don't  need much energy

to put one of these  things over

so if you're going to teach  your children something early

and use  computers here's one

you can start off  with this and

instead of worrying about  some sorting algorithm

which is  absolutely unimportant to learn

doesn't even have anything really much  to do with computing

really computing is  about

systems it was only about sorting  algorithms

for a couple of years in the  50s it's

hung on and on arm because  they're simple you

can do everything but  it's completely irrelevant compared

what systems our particular systems that  have feedback

loops in this is one of  the things that

children absolutely have  to learn they have to learn early

  because adults

are put into a position  much

later on of being faced with  something that goes against

some belief  that they already have well

you can

hide  my props here

yeah so what about the earth

same deal

comes back we

wind up with one of these

think about toppling the major systems

  of the planet most

people have not the  faintest idea of

how much energy a  single hurricane even has

its vastly  more than all the nuclear

arsenal we  have ever made or hope to make

so once  you

allow this

to happen you could

it be  easily and I'm not just giving

a scare  talk here you could actually be

  producing a hundred thousand year event

  for things to recover

that event might  not involve us at

the end of it can't

  completely destroy the planet just

by  global warming and killing off stuff  that's around but

you can make it  awfully unpleasant for

us so

go back to  this kit again what

is the problem well  the problem is

the world that we live in  this artificial world

we call a  civilization is really complicated

  already when everything is going well  it's

still complicated it's so  complicated

and going so well and all

the people worry about politically is  work that

means things are really going  well

because you don't worry about work  when you're starving

worry about food

so  these are just some of the things that

  are more important than work but they're

  all part and parcel of the same thing  now

if you grow up to be an adult yeah  you have to have

to worry about but an  adult every adult

in the society should  worry about the next generation whether  or not

your kids are not that's part of the  deal having

a rich life not just one

  that copes and gets by being a citizen I

  just throw in the United Nations

  Declaration of Human Rights because it's

worthwhile reading if you haven't read  it it's nice isn't ours and

it also has

  a much better theory

about looking at  what humans and human rights are

not a bad thing to retreat to what  you're trying to figure

out what you  should be doing and then to

take this  stuff which is kind of when things are  going

well and you load it on

really a  hundred things I've

just got four here  that are

in store in the 22nd

century  the war

and slavery and trafficking  you're going

on right now drinkable  water doesn't

exist for 70% of the

  population almost

all of the Earth's  population does

not have good water to  drink now

to me that's a moral crime  that's outrageous

yep

Trump worrying about whether we should  be paying money to help Europe

but we've got some big bigger

problems  in the future and

another one is

this one I've

just started looking into  this again this

is the kentucky lady who

  was here yeah hi so here's

here's an  interesting thing that I just

got out of  the book I read in the last week and

  that is the urbanization

in the world is  at the rate of one

larger New York area  or one

larger LA or is LA which is 16

  million people every two months

one New

  York City every

two months is the

urbanization and it was just a few years  ago that we

world went past the halfway  point where more

people are now living  in cities even in sub-saharan

Africa so

  this is an immense problem

because if  you couple it with the other thing

  that's going on

which is urban decay and  every

other kind of detail like the  entire American infrastructure

is way  overdue for an overhaul

this is a bill  that we kept on putting off amortized

into the future hoping some future  generation

would pay for it I'm not  going to be the one

to pay for it I  figure

out exit stage left  sometime in the next 10

or 15 years but  you will be the ones to

pay for it or  you get

this force against

this force  all over the world

so the Chinese are  the only ones who actually have a plan

  so they plan in the next 20

years to  build 300 cities

of more than a million  people each

think about that for a  second

that's in the next 20

building cities for the entire  population of the

United  stays because that's

what their problem  is and

our old friend Carl Sagan had

this to say quite a few years ago but  it's completely

appropriate what

hell are we doing well the problem is we  can't imagine anything

except the flood  and

they think they accept being

to jump in and save somebody out of a  car but

we can't imagine is saving 7  billion people on

a much bigger vehicle  ok

so back to the baby

so part of this  is because

genetically we're set up for  this

every human being on earth still  has

the genes from a hundred thousand  years ago

that recapitulate into what is  called

traditional culture and  anthropologists

have studied these  cultures for many years and

over the  last hundred

or more years and found  about 300 things

that are never absent  from any of these

cultures every culture  has a language every culture

has stories  every culture has kinship

every culture  has revenge

these are called human  universals

by the anthropologists so  there are things that

are we have  genetic propensities to

and the COPE  each culture supplies a different

set of  parameters for these universal  categories

so simple way of

saying as  humans are tuned to the visible the

small the nearby the quick the soon the  few the social

and to endure we

are not  tuned to make progress progress

was an  invention of the 18th century was a  radical

idea the

word was originally  promised progress

  in progression

word progression existed  before progress

progress so

and pretty

  much every invention of civilization

has  been something that tries to prop this

off or to deal with it or to get around  with for

instance our propensity for  revenge and Vendetta

that's what the law  was invented to

do the propensity for

  inequity the

propensity for being

on a  subsistence existence and so forth

and  of course

if you take the baby

hundred thousand years ago or anywhere  in the world and bring

it up say in  Paris you're going to get a Frenchman

or  French woman because that is

the way our  genetics works we automatically

start  glomming

on to all the local parameters  for these hundreds

of things that our

  genes drive us to learn so

by the way if  you like Montessori she

was one of the  two or three leading anthropologists in

  Italy at the time as well as being the  first

woman and the

Anthropology was her  hobby but

she was a deep to his deep  into

it and a Montessori School is

an  attempt to embed not this in

the school  but the great ideas

of the civilization  that the kids

are going up into because  you realize you

can't teach epistemology  in a classroom

it's even

trying to teach French in and classroom  over here

just take the kid to France  this is an old seymour

idea goes back to  Montessori

and when Seymour talked about  microworlds

what he meant was making

  something it not only was a little

content  world lifts of

ideas but also something  that the kid could respond

  environmentally to not as a lesson but

  as a place to live for a while so

these  are great ideas these ideas were used in  inventing

the graphical user interface  at Parc long time

ago

so here we are in  the 21st

century and

some

of us are just  finding out we live on a planet

remember we're local

so it takes some  work here

and it's if you like the  internet

for crazy cats and flat

  earthers you can find both

and

in the  20th century

started becoming it wasn't  until about

1920 or so that people  realized

that the universe was as big as  it was up

to then it was thought that

it  wasn't any bigger than our galaxy

part  of it was they had a hard time

seeing  faraway blobs of light as

actually other  galaxies they thought they were

stars  for a while

and most of us are just  waking

up to the idea that it's not just  a hundred

people around us like we have  right here this is a typical

human group  we should have a campfire here

to really  do it because

now I'm talking about  something that's essentially literary

  here in the exact

same means that some  cave person addressed the

tribe 100,000  years ago think of the incongruity

of  having conferences when

what you should  be doing is reading five times faster  than

somebody can think and learning ten  times more than you

can get in an oral  they just and

then translate that to  school of

just how inefficient school is  about

getting and not just inefficient  within the wrong  form yeah

so there's not only billions  of people but

there are thousands of  cultures and subcultures and and

thanks

  to social media every person is their  own

culture now and they will fight

  vociferously for their own identity in  the

midst of something where they can't  win

right you have to be a mass murderer  to

have any notoriety and seven

billion  people all exposed so this is a McLuhan

pointed this out a long time ago by the  way that we

ever had a global village he  said it would be a disaster

because  people would feel a complete loss

identity and they'd spend the rest of  their lives trying to get it back

  sometimes in violent form

and then we  have this technological infrastructure

that's a self-portrait of the internet  but it

stands in for every other kind of  thing we have

including agriculture  which is a

product of Technology every  kind of thing that

we have and

well

we  just discovered us modern medicine  really

dates to world war two that's my

  life I was born in 1940 so

when I was  born we didn't really have it we didn't  have anti

biotics  very little

was known about how things  actually worked and

again in the last  century

or so we started to learn about  the human mind

both cognitively

and  emotionally so

these a lot of systems

so  I like to think this is my other context

  besides the 22nd century the

22nd  century out there and the

context were  actually in is

this systems

concept the  ones we live in ones that we are

and I  could show it

on the slide any other way  but but by putting up this kind of web

work there these systems are not  unrelated it's

use  talk about things

our single little  nuggets they don't

have a glow so every  time we say something

we're saying  something that isn't true because we're

  saying a so pipe

this is why it's  frustrating to

talk because

the way we  deal with these things

is not by using  ordinary language

and it's simply what  we'll just use Einsteins

phrase they're  all deeply hidden

the system's aspects  of things

are deeply hidden almost  everywhere then especially in

cases  though you can hardly find any hint of  it

at all

okay

so the

big shifts I just

  reduce this down to three enormous

  important changes first

one with this  hundred thousand year one of

basically  thinking everything is everything

works  because of angels and this

literally was  in one

of the main papers written in the  17th century

that timing because Newton  was

also writing the Principia  Mathematica at the same time

basic idea is that you know if the  plants are

going around in a circle then

  centripetal force

should force

of orbit so what's keeping them in orbit  and one of the

well they're angels on the other side of  the planets beating

their wings to keep  the planet

into the center so

this is a  tough one to shake because

it's the  simplest explanation

that our genetic  minds can come up

with it's called a  form of animism

so the 17th

century we  got this we can call it

from miracles  the mechanisms if you want from

Angels  the gears and

this was the

  scientific paradigms that things

had  causes and you could track down the

causes if you were really careful and  you can make models

of the causes and  those models would tell you about other  causes

and this change

is probably the  biggest in my opinion is the biggest

  epistemological shift in human history

  nothing compares with it and

if you want  the book that has the greatest

leap that  has ever been made that's Newton's

  Principia but

in the 20th century we had

  something a

lot looser and a lot bigger

  than gears

especially once biology  started getting elucidated

anybody know  how many cells we have in our body

like  within a

trillion no okay well it's

a  good no numbers are sometimes useful so

  it turns out me walking around the

re there are a hundred thousand cells  I mean

100 trillion cells hundred  trillion cells

unfortunately

only 10  trillion of those have my DNA in them

same

with you 90

trillion cells that  don't have our DNA what

are they well if  you gathered them all together they're

  all the microorganisms in our body and  make a slime

ball about like this just

loaded with some of them are trying to  eat you up and

some of them are trying  to put you back together and most

hem don't give a damn they're just  along for the ride so

these systems

work  in a completely different way than gears

  and we

have to heed that for a variety  of reasons

not just for general  knowledge

but because

  for those of us

who are interested in  children at an early age this is when  you

learn it or you don't it's

not that  you can't learn a foreign language or

to  play classical piano with age 40

  most people don't

so for practical  purposes if you don't learn this

that is really difficult really  different early

if you've got a problem  and by

the way if you look at

what they  call science in especially in

the early  grades but even in grades 8 6 through 8

  it is underwhelming to say the least to  anybody

who's a scientist  it's hardly recognizable

everybody

is  having a good time but

the chances that  the children are actually

anything important about science are  pretty darn low

and of course this stuff  which

has been around now for almost a  hundred years maybe 80

years isn't being  touched

here's the thing that's really  important

for you to understand today's  computing is mired

in years why do I say  that

because the kind of

coordination  you have to

do to call a procedure to  use it

as a sub part is gear like it

is  tightly meshed it's carefully planned

  and almost

all computer programs have  that tightly meshed aspect

to them  however the Internet

does not the  Internet is the size

it is ten eleven  orders of

magnitude in the number of  notes that it

has precisely because it  is not like what computing

was like in  the fifties not at all and probably

the  most important thing I can perch on you

today is to try and understand that  computing is not exactly

what you  think it is most computer

people do not  think the Internet is a computational

  device because it works so much

than any computer program they've ever  tried think

about it the internet  doesn't break an

internet attack is not  an attack on the Internet

has never been  attacked because it can't attack it

all  it ever gets attacked is

inside the computers  written

by people who don't understand  this you have to understand this

so what  happened when the internet get done and

  a few other things back in the 70s or

so  now 40 some-odd years ago was

a big  paradigm shift in computing and it

  hasn't spills out yet but

looking ahead to the 22nd century this  is what you have

to understand otherwise  you're always going

to be steering by  looking in the rearview mirror  you'll

never get to where it's going to  go every curriculum

will be doomed to  being completely obsolete before it's  ever

put out there

ok so I'm not going  to go through

I'm not going to go  through

these things I'm just pointing

  out that on big diagrams like this which

I urge you to make your own versions of  you can once

you put these things up  there they immediately lead to good  questions

about education because

  there's a lot of stuff

like a pretty  cool one is that

Wow  if you try to go after this as

old  disciplines like

science and math and  bla bla bla bla bla you're

screwed but

if you notice that every single one of  them uses the language

of systems to  describe it you can come

up with a new  integrated way of thinking about these  STEM subjects

there wouldn't be ste M  would be just a s

and there's some great books I'm

going to go through these this book came  out just last week

I got it I read it  over

the weekend I just loved it so much  as

a guy at Santa Fe Institute I just

  loved it so much that I thought about  changing

this entire talk and just doing  it from this book this is a magisterial

  book it's written for the general public  and

can't

fabulous  while

we're on Santa Fe Institute here's  dude Kaufman an old friend

of mine this  is really a crazy book but you

want to  sometimes when you learn about things  it's

helpful to learn crazy ideas

about  systems this is a systems book also

  written for the general public here's

one of my favorite people who does get  it

so Irene Lee

undergraduate degree in  mathematics

she was associated with the  Santa Fe Institute but

basically she  understood that

it's not about computing  per se

because science is the big

idea  that's why people even tax science

the end of computing even though they  don't mean it

  it's cachet right

it's like library  science

but science is

the big idea and  computing is the

underpinning of the new  modeling

for ideas that's what

I read  and understood this it's not the only  one

to understand it but she has been  tireless over the last 10

years or so of  trying to make this happen and

right  away once

you start thinking this way  you cannot use standard

programming  languages because you can't get make

systems from them you have to use  languages in which

you can make systems  that allow you to deal with

things that  that happen I'll just

mention because  breath

is pretty much my favorite young  thinker on

all this stuff I think he's  one of the most profound

people we have  around

this book some of you may

have read

very  important if you haven't

read it read it  because it's

what he does here is he  does

what he calls expository fiction  its meaning

lies lies made for

explaining something that's too  complicated to explain and

the  expository fiction

he comes up with is  just completely brilliant

and you can  take it a long way before

you get into  dangerous areas on

it and what he  decided was what

if we just took every  mechanism in

the brain that is there to  respond

quickly like a half second

or  less somewhere in that ballpark

and  we're all over the brain there

therefore  came about different times evolution you  know

they just aren't a system as he  points out but he called them system

  what that system one is not a system

  it's just the

name I'm using for this  thing and now I'm going to take  everything

else that thinks does the  thinking slowly I'm

gonna call it system  two so

this is just complete bullshit  right but

what's great about it is just  from

staying with that and taking a look

  at what's actually going on anybody

who's interested in learning anybody's  interested in teaching can

learn an  awful lot about really

good approaches  in particular

to people who did not like  rote learning when

they're in school  well you're right

because inverse rote  learning you

don't learn the you learn  the

notes but not the music but the

  problem is if you do the cognitive side

  only which is a reaction to it you

  completely lose because the cognitive  the

different  thinking things

in order to get really  good slow thinking

going you have to  have something it is tough

it is rather  like learning to play a classical  musical

instrument where it's basically  cognitive

it's basically emotional but  you have to have the chops or

it's  basically like reading you

have to get  really skilled at reading before

you  forget you're reading and getting

to  that place in all of these areas that's

  really tough and with that take

a look  at Frank Smith has written a lot about

  what literacy is and he treats it in a  nice

whoops  treats it in a in

a way that's nice for  us

because

you

expect them to talk about  the English language he

says no forget  about the English language it's

really  about ideas because littered

the literature are there because there's  something worthwhile

reading and writing  about so

we have to think about what the  ideas are that

we want to put all forth  all this effort and

we start finding  representations and

those of you who  know about the history writing

in a  natural language you'll know that most

  of the early efforts were in fact

rather  in story form even

for things that  weren't stories that's because

didn't know any other way of structuring  this

course other than what had been  used around the

campfire and it took  quite a while it's

really the 17th  century when people started to look at

  other ways of writing prose

Thomas  Hobbes for example was

one of the  inventors of modern prose forms

and in  between you've got always pondering

and  finding and these things Co evolved over  time the

representations help the ideas  the

ideas that you get from there

back on representations if you're lucky  unless

you have in academia because  academia

is tend to freeze some  convenient

representation to teach and  they tend to stove-piped

himself off so  this was CP snows

two cultures lecture  you may have read

about where he took  the

literary culture in england to task

  for never learning math and science  despite

the fact that most of the  interesting

ideas in the 20th century  had mathematical

and scientific content  and despite

the fact that newton's  principia had math

and geometry and  other things in it and it's a

work of  great literature so

academia is one of  the tougher

barriers and

so

I just said  that I'm getting

older so I have to put  in these little I hate bullets

but  they're now more used

to me than they  are to you

okay so here's the gazillion

  things of a huge gazillions of

thing  these are just things I jotted down

for  ideas

of interest now and going

forward  into the 22nd century there

are a lot of  them notice

there aren't too many that  really seem

to have too much to do  directly with computers but if you look  at carefully

competing underlies every  single one of them

understanding them

so  it's just

like

when i kritis

  to criticize programming languages

so  one of the things I criticized asked

about a programming language both what  kind of systems can

I make in it if I'm  a kid they're really set up

for making  things out of simultaneous modules and

hooking them together well most of them  are most

things are aggregates I really

  uses starlogo

for doing that both  languages can't handle any

kind of  aggregates except for simple to raise

  think about how ridiculous that is

in  the age of science it's

a complete  disconnect with everything

except what  computer likes to use arrays for

  simulations here's one  how

many programming languages that  you're using with children have

can

tell you zero

you can't have three  centimeters to five inches

in any  programming language and have

to get a reasonable answer because you  can't say that

a number has a dimension  of

inches or centimeters one

of the Mars  missions was lost because of that they

programmed it in language that didn't  have this like most programming

  languages and the person who

program was thinking in terms of  centimeters

the person who wrote the  program was thinking in terms of inches  and

so a 300 million dollar rocket

  failed just because of that

error  it's the programming language perfectly

  if it was in there about reasoning

and  so forth okay so there's

and

they're not isolated things I

can  see Hamlet up there about humans

but the  real humans are not really isolated from

  aggregates from simulation

from systems  from any of these things and

if you're  introduced to

tiny little ideas in  stovepipes

and it's up to you the  students particularly

student to make sense of them between  the soap

pipes you're in real trouble if  you don't have a friendly

adult we  actually can steer you through this

  morass you're going to be trapped

in a  world of non meaning

so the meaning here  so I just

somebody said something that  sounded good as

it should be fun and  should relate to the kids like No

yes of  course it should be fun but where

do you  get the fun from the important thing  about modern

education is it's precisely  about teaching

children not to be likely  where hundred

thousand years ago it is  not about

catering to what kids just  want

to do when they're messing around  no

we don't want to torture them but

whole point of civilization is to learn  things

that are stronger than what

we  naturally go up with so of course the  stuff is

tough real question is what  makes tough

fun hard fun Seymour used to  call

it  what makes hard fun well it is fun  especially if

a bunch of people are  doing things together

so the idea

here basic it's about science this is  irene lee's rap and

what's the problem

the purpose

of a book understand the  force and energy

mechanics and  relativity

it was here and they rely

on  me the universe I go

they have made fun of me

in high school  the concordance all go

in the hole I got  lasers wow that's

really cool okay the  mass times acceleration

[Music]

strength Yee

did I give you a

reaction here comment  something up mattaniah

say okay if

I had  time I'd let this is so great it's on

  YouTube called physics wars and

yeah so

  what's great about science is science is

mature enough so it can see what's funny  about itself

I'm not sure the computing  has actually got to that point

yet still  taking itself very very seriously

but in  fact this

exists inside of computing but  much worse it exists

in the fortress

of  computing against other ideas

so it's  after their

resistance for instance to  teaching

science with computing because  a lot of people who are

pure computer  people they want it they want to have

  computing be an essential subject

high school what they should be asking  for

don't ask for it is a separate  subject what you want

is to have the  children learn knowledge don't

worry  about what you want it's really about

  the children so

so let's take a look at

his

idea here

is the problem

when people

look at to see what  percentage of the population is

  naturally autodidactic and this means

  not dabbling in something for

one's own  amusement everybody is kind of audited  tactic

and of course we all have to do  our own learning

in the end learning is  actually done by us

but being an  autodidact

is a person who can

  ferociously take charge and

maps  themselves up to the

kinds of learning  or better that you would get say

in a  good high school or good college and

  maybe five to ten percent of humans are

  that so

not a lot and so

if we're going  to do something that

is going to change  education

in some way this is something  we all agree

it with here's why you're  here is we have to

deal with this  genetic thing

that humans have is that  we are set up to learn from other people  in

fact we're not only stuff to

from who are set up to learn a lot by  not even talking about

because in  traditional

societies we just go off in  a culture and that's what that

is our  reality that is what we've learned we  don't have to

go to school for most  things

o

when this powerful ideas stuff

started to happen  yeah maybe back in Greece

don't pin  everything on dead white

guys because a  lot of stuff is happening in China

right  it's exactly the same time and

many many  of them in the same direction but

it

  started with the symbol of Socrates and

  the thing right

away is when you have a  great teacher and we've

all had at least  one right everybody has

it we as anybody  had not ever had a good teacher  a

great teacher yeah usually

one or two  you never forget

them they change your  life the

greatest calling in the world  to be a teacher we

just have to get the  teachers to find

a way learning more but  also

finding a way of leveraging  knowledge in a different

way so

yeah  when

we have a problem particularly if  you happen

to be on that side of the  world let's invent a technology

to help  how about writing

and the cool thing  about writing is

you can get

some of  Socrates in there in

fact Plato was able  to get enough of Socrates in

there that  we still remember both of them and  remember

a lot of the ideas think about  that so

writing transcends time

and  space and if

you know your Greek letters  anybody

see what the title of that piece

  of writing is there so

this is the feed  rest which is one of the

most famous of  the Platonic dialogues because it's

  about just what I'm talking about this  is

not a not as it wasn't Greek in in  Greece

this was a copy done about 2,000

  years ago or so yeah

  and once

you have writing you

can just  get a couple of intelligent

he writings together and all of a  sudden you've

got something it's above  threshold that's a

fantastic invention

  except

not enough books but

can we  invent a technology

to help sure how  about the printing press and

if you like  history

most people think the Industrial  Revolution happened

in the 18th century  but if you think about

Industrial Revolution was the printing  press was the very first

invention of  the Industrial Revolution  yes

Industrial Revolution is

making  copies of things very inexpensively and

  what you got there is

two things you got  the

teacher and the students and the  book but

once you can make a gazillion  books you got something even

better  you got the autodidact in

the room so

so  here's the dream of the

last 60 years in  computing you may not even heard it

because it hasn't been talked about so  much but it's coming back

when computer  first

came about people started  realizing that

besides all these  wonderful things have had for  representing

knowledge and representing  ideas and simulating

it should be able  to simulate

something more than a book  can simulate

of what a Socrates can do  not everything

but something more and so

I'll just show you the last slide here  and then let's

get to ask that

so what I'm earning here

is instead of  trying to get to the future just by  making

improvements on what you're doing  the problem there is you're

assuming  that the present is okay and

so trying  to take something whereas

the future you don't have to assume the  present is okay

and just worry about  what it should be and if you think

what it should be using some of these  ideas you could then see

what should be  going on you can bring that back and  that

can be your longer-term project  while you're working on

what to do next  week thank you thank you very much

thank  you so

I think it was I

got asked to of  course

I always talk to the time given  but

anybody any questions about

sure

  will you actually fill

yet if you could  wait for something like over we

have  about 15 minutes for Q&A and I agreed to  stick

around 83 introduces hi I'm Sylvia

  Martinez I was wondering if you thought  that

Wolfram Alpha was a big step in the

kind of programming languages that you  were saying don't exist yeah

so so -

and  this again this is a great question  because

the future of most commercial

  programming let's say

20 30 years from  now almost all of

the stuff that kids  are trying to learn to get jobs for is

  going to be done with by languages like  Wolfram

Alpha and the reason

is is be is  because the you

know sort of TurboTax  for

our large-scale programming

on  relatively generic problems

that are  relatively understood and so

for  pedagogy it's exactly the

opposite  because what you're giving the child

is  a servant who already knows the answer

  right and so if

you think of the the  problems

  after the aristocracy has growing up  with

certain particularly if they hired  smart Greeks who

knew all the answers as  part of what did the Romans in is

for  child you

don't want to give them a  language in which you can ask

a question  and get an answer so if you made

  WolframAlpha be like Socrates where

you ask it a question  the system

question they would start getting the  kid thinking about

it then it would be  good pedagogically but

if it comes back  with the answer it couldn't be worse

kind of like you know the Misun  misunderstanding

people had about Sim  City which got every

it's one of the worst things ever done  for education

because because

you  couldn't examine the model it used

you couldn't change the model it use I  got

after math maxis a lot about that  didn't

the educators didn't care because  the kids liked it they

did things but  look you can't

learn about a city it's  the only recourse your

simulation has to  crime rate

is the only way you can stave  off crime rate is build more police

  stations come on that was built into Sim  City

could not find it  and so

we have to make the distinction  between

now if you're learning a musical  instrument

even you have to

do things  that are hard and the pedagogy there

is  to help you do those hard things if

you're trying to accomplish a goal in  business what you're trying

accomplish this goal and these are just  completely

two different things the one  good thing about will

from Alpha which  yeah

welcome

yeah well you're thinking  Mathematica No

yeah I think I've seen but it isn't

the  thing that you can ask it

okay

I'll look  at look at

and if I know if I know  wolfram at

all it does have units bits

you can add three centimeters to five  inches in

it yeah so I'll look at it  thank you very much for that

um so my  name is Patricia

Pena from the  University of Puerto Rico I my

question  to you is a kind of was shocked because  like

I think of you as the first person  who created

an object oriented  programming language right uh

you know a  success

has a thousand fathers and  failures

an orphan okay that's a yeah

  yeah so I but I guess I'm I

was early  you early but one of the things I love  about object-oriented

programming is  that you create units

right and then you  can transfer you know

translate from or  do the translation between the

units and  so to hear you say that you

want unit  could be implemented into

a programming  language kind of to me taste the

that the beauty of voice well  object-oriented

yeah so so that is an  extremely good

question because yeah  when we first did

small talk one of the  first things we

did was to see how far  you could go

just using objects and

  making it do the coercion between one

scale of dimensions and another  and

unless I'm completely mistaken the

  this you know there's a level

where this  is actually worth like it's worthwhile

using an object-oriented language to  make complex numbers

and to do other  kinds of

things in the number sphere  most of the most of languages do

a  terrible job going from one form of  number

to another and many of the so  called object-oriented

numbers aren't odds  for

instance they aren't in Java or C

I  think JavaScript either so there

isn't a  class for those numbers you can't

look to see what's there you can't  really add things

to them so

yeah the if  you

go deeper into these dimensions  thing

like what you need for science it  actually is

a parallel to dimensions are

  to the physical

world what a type theory  is to type

languages in other words they  give meaning

there

it's a way of giving  meaning and objects are a way of

putting  types on things

but

I would

not try and  get a third grader

to extend an  object-oriented language to

put in  dimensions and I absolutely want

a third  grader just like I wouldn't try to get  them to

write the graphics system later

on I like them to open the hood and see  that the graphics system

the same language that they wrote I like  them to open the hood and

see that the  dimension system is written

in the same  thing but it's a question of what what  you

want to learn when do when do you  need to learn it learning the

dimensions is much more important than  learning how to implement

them so you  spread

them out that way yeah conversely  most of the

standards

in fractions are

  given to the children before they can

  actually derive those

relationships and  there is

where you really would it's  really

makes things confusing and to  teachers so

what once

went around and  talked to teachers at 14 schools and 5th

grade teachers and I asked what one of  the questions I asked

was when did you  check out of mathematics now

when when  did you decide mathematics wasn't for  you

and 80% of the answers were

  invert and multiply

for dividing one  fraction by another and

get it in fifth  grade and

if you got an eighth grade  it's

trivial because you you just

had a little bit it's just a little bit  of algebra you can

just derive it you  don't even have to know it you just

set  it up and simplify it and it

simplifies  to convert and multiply but instead

fifth grade the kids are given a rule  that they can't see the reason for

and  if you think about fractions

the worst  one which nobody complains

about is  multiplying one fraction by another  multiply

the top and by the bottom  nobody

takes about that because it looks  reasonable turns

out it doesn't  reasonable law it was one of the  triumphs

of Greek mathematics to figure  out how to do that

right and so there  you've got something

where the thing one  thing is confusing and the other one is  invisible

and both of those I think are  bad

discussions and I think every

one of  these points that's why I advocate

  making a kind of panoply of

projects  before we get to curriculum and

standards and those things of just  trying to find out what kinds of

  cognitive things done the best ways we  know how

can children of different ages  actually absorb

into their fluency  because every

time they get fluent at  something it means that opens it up to

be actually use rather than forgotten  later

on right now I see that as

omething that is almost a  project-by-project

idea by it  idea basis and computing

and I've been  surprised many many

times by some

by  some of the things that children can do

  once we figured out a better book

you  know when they keep failing it's either

  they're cognitively it's just not

there  yet to do this thing but on

many  occasions you know the fourth or fifth  try

we thought of a complete  different way of presenting the

ideas  and those ideas happen to be an acog of

  abilities of the children they just got

  them in a most exciting fashion

I think  we've all had that experience what I

  what I think is missing is

and Cynthia's  advocated this also as look

there are a  whole bunch of really important

things  that were done by the and

Seymour and  EDA Sesa in

boxer  Mitchell

Mitchell Resnick before he  started doing the scratch stuff

we

my  particularly group has done stuff for

  over 40 years so we have many compelling  examples

of really important ideas that  children can learn really

well  early those are the things that are  scattered

and before I would write down

  a single line and a standard or a single

  word in a framework what I'd like

to do  is exhibit like from K through eighth  grade

here's a hundred example projects

  of computing helping children

learn  powerful ideas that would be greater

I  just put it up on the wall and then you

  can sit down and start thinking oh none  of our programming

languages are very  good for this

but the but because I'm  using different

programming languages to  get to so right

away we've got an  impetus for doing a new programming  language

and by the way if you look

the history and many of you here are  just getting started but

the history of  this is that

going back into the late  70s

early 80s when a CMS are getting  interested

in this stuff  they kept on picking one language after  another

just because the language was  around so

first it was Pascal and it was  C and C++

Java

JavaScript Python

never  did

any of these reformers sit down and  say we

need a pedagogical language

takes too  yeah

tough beans spend the two years

because there's a lot of things you can  do while you're spending the

two years  that's that is what really frost

me is  just this expediency of taking

some  random thing done four completely  different even

scratch scratch came out

of the be toy stuff that we did at  Disney but scratch was designed

for  explicit purpose of allowing

children in  one hour to do a multimedia

project  about themselves in the Intel's  supported

clubhouses there are a hundred  Intel

supported clubhouses malice cut  butt scratches

design for is not it  doesn't even do all the things

that II  toys did and so etoys

is lawns twenty  years old is long obsolete compared to

  what we should be working on so this is  just

a plea for that that the ideas that  were

still good  most

of the mechanism that was using the  past as long did

should be

you know if  programming languages were only  biodegradable

we do the world

and they  just never go away so

for the question  with us

yes sir

  hello my name is Neil Saul's Griffin I  run

a nonprofit called code now I'm also  adjunct

faculty at Northwestern  University my question is related

to  your comments around

cities and systems  and I was curious to know how

might  someone in a position of influence or

even leadership at the C level  particularly in the

United States helped  invent the future

well I so

this

this  scale book I by

Jeffrey West his one of  the things that's

great about this this  guy's a physicist so he got sucked

into  this stuff the way people

and honest  scientists often do

you know he got  hooked by complexity in

that most  interesting complexities

mathematics  that classical mathematics can't

supply  so computers come in and you start

  looking at this stuff and his

a special  interest in this book a

the middle part of the book is about  cities and

this

is not a new idea but  one

of the great curriculums in

K  through eight is the city

building  curriculum of Doreen Nelson and

if you  haven't seen it you should look at it  Doreen

is Frank Gehry's sister she knows

  a lot about architecture and stuff

and  this is a real systems curriculum

  serious systems curriculum and I've

seen  it implemented in the best possible

way  as young as early as third grade it is  absolutely

exemplary you know it takes  months

to do it's done without computers

  it's done with models you need a lot

of  space to do it but it's

it's an example  of what

is it that the children need to  pay attention to what

is that they need  to find out how do they need to organize

  it has political parts of it because

a  real city is also

rganization and if you're going to  improve things

so this I can't

recommend  this curriculum more

in a

higher way and  so if

I were dealing if I were in the  urban environment I

went to high school  in New York v on the urban

environment I  would use the urban environment as the

  starting place David

McCauley wrote a  great book called underground I don't  you've seen

that book it's one of my  favorite books it's

what if the what if  the street was transparent

with what's  actually down

there how has the city  actually run it's all underground

  so this visit there's a whole

thing that  could be built out of that and today the

ability of the can  computer to simulate

complicated things  of

all kinds is

you can do a lot of  really interesting things about

cities  I think the vehicle

for allowing the  children to do that kind of programming  I

don't know if why but

since I didn't  know about the Wolfram programming  language

there could very well be

  something I know Don Hopkins who is one

  of the guys who did Sin City has done an  open-source

Sin City that does allow you  to

get to the various stuff but

yeah so  that I mean the simple

pep talk is that  it's really complicated

but the simple  pep talk is science is all

around us  like Einstein's compass and

the trick to  getting into it is you have to ignore

  all the distractions that come

into your  sense and Sciences is basically about

getting around your senses and the quick  perceptions

that we're set up  genetically to

do because almost all of  those perceptions are quite wrong

right  and so it's a bit like

uncovered  learning magic learning

how to get  behind the scenes of the

actually going on and finding out that  it's like

Fineman said really

things the more you learn about them the  better they are

they'll lose the mystery  they get more mysterious

and a lot of  the best things in

science their mystery

  is part of their art and

we get into  that in history in that art by learning

understanding them more and more deeply  and more and more

things so yeah some  like I I

think that would be and that's  what I certainly would advocate

that to  any mayor like

you talk to a mayor or I  talked

to the superintendent of a  unified

last year and I asked

what is  what is your number-one problem and the

  person said 9th grade algebra

and I said

  ninth grade algebra that the

kids were  learning arithmetic algebra

would not be  a problem

because what and

part of the  problem is if then it's checked

kids don't really understand what the  implication of the equal sign is

because  they never merely get it and they

never  get a good picture of what a number is  because

they're taught numerals  whereas thinking of a number

of the  process of all the ways to make it so if

  once you get that down in fourth and  fifth

grade algebra is a snap and

so I  said to the principal well

look if you  just did early

raise mathematics in a  reasonable way and a lot

of different  ways to do it I pointed them to some of  the

backward stuff and didn't want to do  it because no

because the parents are  not worried about

their kids when  they're in the early grades they're  worried

about the kids who are not going  to leave home after

they leave high  school what the parents want is for

kids to get jobs and to get the heck out  of the house and so

the whole political  pressure in LA anyway is

dealing with  the high school problems and for

many of  these things is way late because

it is  really hard learning mathematics unless

  you've gotten some of the skills way of

  thinking about relations mathematics is  relationships

of relationships that's a  job I know I'm

included yeah so I mean

  it's frustrating because it's like the

  infrastructure where do you start

  there's every part of it needs to be  reformed I

think you've just treated as  an epidemic and

an epidemic you spend a  fair amount of your and

energy on triage  and dealing

with what's going on right  now and you have to put aside 20-25

  percent of your existing funds

to try  and find a cure for the disease right

  because what you don't want to do is to  just

take care of sick people for the  rest of your life

you want this that  we're in the century where

you knock out  the germs

well yep the epidemic

is now

these it's  it's complicated

because see I advocate  that people should go to school

despite  the fact that I hated many

things about  school and I was there

by and large  school it's

better the problem is is

  that the preaching

to the choir here if  anything but

the biggest problem what's  the biggest problem in English

well the biggest problem in English  classes they spend too much time

  worrying about little tiny things

you  can test with multiple-choice tests  rather than

one of the big ideas  expressed in English you

can't test  rhetoric and writing

very well in a  multiple-choice test  California

did a huge experiment in the  eighties where

they tried to go to a  really good English

and language arts  curriculum any educator here

should look  it up they put gazillions

it  and it

was all about children writing  essays

and hiring people to to be able

to help read the essays and everything  it collapsed because

in part because the  teachers didn't want to eat the

kids  essays in the end

the testing ran one  out just because it

was more convenient  and I

think so when you when you get  into thing you have to ask always

you're in the middle of a bureaucracy  was what are their actual

goals what are  the

goals and I'll just give

you one  National Association of Educational

  Progress everybody know that NAEP they

  do the reading tests and stuff well

just go on there  don't even bother looking at the the

high school or grade school tests forget  about k12 the most interesting

thing  they have here is they periodically test

  the graduates of four-year colleges and  universities

in the US on reading  proficiency

that is what you wanted  want to

look at and just in case you  don't want to chase

that down I can tell  you that

the in the

1993

the graduates

of four-year colleges and universities  in the u.s.

were only 42

percent  proficient and if

you look at what  proficiency means it doesn't mean really

  a fluent reader so that's an absolute  scale

used over 42% 2003

it was down to  31 percent

31 percent of the nation's  college

graduates are proficient

and  reading and everybody else is worse so

  what that means to me is this

good  because I contain colleges now I don't

  have to go after Kaiser drop what

it  means to me is the University u.s.

  colleges and universities are selling

degrees and they absolutely don't have  any academic

integrity anymore they

  would absolutely not any institution

with academic integrity would not allow  people to

get a degree and not be able  to read period

it's that simple so

that  is a simple one you don't have to know  it's

so glaring it's so shocking that

it  but it indicates something

that's bad  through the whole chain I don't like the  influence

of business on universities on  like

I'm on the edge of faculty at UCLA  mainly

for students but I'm shocked

UCLA is one of the top 10 places in the  country and their

introduction to  programming course is still C++

what

here's never a good reason to have

C++  be the first course in a university

  vocational training maybe

but so

but  Stanford turned itself into a Java

  school when Java came out much

distress of the faculty there but the  provost wanted

it because they could  sell more C's

so we have to realize that  at the university

level the universities  turn themselves into businesses partly

  as a result of the baby boom and there's

a good book if you want to if your  endures and follow it up is called  imposters

in the temple written by a  Stanford

professor Impostors in the  temple

yeah so so

these are systems  problems right because everything

is  intertwined and you start pulling on

  something is what seems to be a simple  problem

is attached to a fifty thousand  ton weight

that some other bureaucracy  that's

interested in some other things  so I'm not saying any

of this is easy  and the

simplest thing to do is to stand  up here and complain about it

but I  believe

the the simplest way out of  these

things is just take

care of the  kids that are in high school

as best as  possible but take this

not this 83 years  to the end of the century seriously

the  kids born this year we got five

figure out what they should be really  doing in first grade and

that is what  educators should absolutely be spending

  their time in you just do a year a

grade  a year and

of course it's going to be  difficult and

because they're ever  it's against

almost everybody's killing  of already

being in a pretty good place  I

spent years trying to talk

the NCTM  National Council teacher of mathematics

  into the simplest idea

which is  combining math and science hours and

Cal  born in so you've got a two-hour thing  everyday

and you could teach math and  science together

as aspects of each  other no way

  they had their territory

nailed out  there I spent years in Sacramento

trying to trying to make something  happen there

so now

it's difficult the  cool thing

about being a teacher even  though

it's it's

you're not supported  the way you should be

but the cool thing  about being a teacher is you're

in there  and you've got the class there and

until  like bring the thought police in

on you  which could could

happen right but it  totally brings la police on in

you've done your homework on the  subjects you

want to teach them you can  make an enormous difference then

nobody  can wipe out that to me is the

that's  the big message the people really

  believe in this stuff are doing it in  spite

of the bullshit and the

only thing  that counts is just changing

a child's  mind whenever you can whenever you can  get them to

see that shadow of the  compass instead of the compass

you've  done your job so that's a

good time to  quit right okay thank you so