CrossRoads 2017

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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