If you read this:

The evidence themselves suggests that from an executive perspective, the most desirable employees may no longer necessarily be those with proven ability and judgment, but those who can be counted on to follow orders and be good "team players."

Then you might be encouraged by this:

When nonengineers think about engineering, it’s usually because something has gone wrong. In the follow-up investigations, it comes out that some of the engineers involved knew something was wrong. But too few spoke up or pushed back — and those who did were ignored.

Most engineering schools stress subjects like differential calculus and physics, and their graduates tend to end up narrowly focused and likely to fit the stereotype of a socially awkward clock-puncher ... too much note-taking in the classroom and not enough hands-on ...

Richard Miller says, "I think those days are over."

Constance Bowe, an emeritus professor at UC Davis, says: “We need to be teaching them how to learn, as opposed to teaching them a whole lot of facts.” She sees Olin as trying “to create more of a stem cell” — the kind of cell that can become any other kind of cell.

In some companies, the freethinking products of Olin might have trouble fitting in. “Does industry want people like that? I think that’s a very good question, but I think this goes beyond what industry wants,” he said. “This is the right thing to do — this is what industry needs. If the country had more people like this, we’d be in a much better situation.”

This is promising.

Re-Engineering Engineering

Connexions is:

a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:

* authors create and collaborate
* instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
* learners find and explore content

Connexions - Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities

5. How can the contemplative mind survive in the multitasking, ADD-inducing world of digitization? Are we willing to face the downside of this great electronic boon? Do we really want students reading electronic texts of the classics that are festooned with more links than a Wikipedia entry? Aren’t a few moments of quiet bafflement preferable to an endless steeplechase across Web page after Web page?

This URL is not loading at the present time, but you can read it in the Google cache.

Then think of poor Douglas Rushkoff.

Being Human: 10 Questions about the future of the humanities in America

Dave Eggers is funny.

Are you a parent? Are you thirsty? Too many of us allow our infant sons and daughters to lay about idly: napping, drinking milk, and sometimes "turning over." Why not have them mix you a cocktail?

Tots will be entranced by the shapes and colors, all the while learning how to write a check. An essential purchase for expectant parents, harried mothers, hungry fathers, and overly involved grandparents.

Baby Mix Me A Drink

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has been MIT's introductory pre-professional computer science subject since 1981. It emphasizes the role of computer languages as vehicles for expressing knowledge and it presents basic principles of abstraction and modularity, together with essential techniques for designing and implementing computer languages. This course has had a worldwide impact on computer science curricula over the past two decades. The accompanying textbook by Hal Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman is available for purchase from the MIT Press, which also provides a freely available on-line version of the complete textbook.

These twenty video lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman are a complete presentation of the course, given in July 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees, and professionally produced by Hewlett-Packard Television. The videos have been used extensively in corporate training at Hewlett-Packard and other companies, as well as at several universities and in MIT short courses for industry.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Video Lectures

The WGBH Forum Network is an audio and video streaming Website dedicated to curating and serving live and on-demand lectures given by some of the world's foremost scholars, authors, artists, scientists, policy makers and community leaders. These events are hosted by world-class cultural and educational organizations in the Greater Boston area. Through this online service thousands of interested people across the world partake of these lectures from the comfort of their home or office at any time they choose. We are proud of the role we serve in our community, of protecting and projecting the public voice; and of informing and inspiring that public voice to foster deeper understanding of and civic engagement in important issues.

You'll be amazed by the breadth and depth of this archive.

WGBH Forum Network | Free Online Lectures

In a recent talk at MIT, the author of The Social Life of Information revisits much of the second half of this book, in particular, the last chapter about the future of education.

In a digitally connected, rapidly evolving world, we must transcend the traditional Cartesian models of learning that prescribe “pouring knowledge into somebody’s head." We learn through our interactions with others and the world ...

While the wired world may be flat, it now also features “spikes,” interactive communities organized around a wealth of subjects. For kids growing up in a digital world, these unique web resources are becoming central to popular culture. Now, educators must begin to incorporate the features of mash-ups and remixes in learning, to stimulate “creative tinkering and the play of imagination.”

With the avid participation of online users, the distinction between producers and consumers blurs. In the same way, knowledge ‘production’ must flow more from ‘amateurs’ – the students, life-long learners, and professionals learning new skills.

The challenge of 21st century education will be leveraging the abundant resources of the web – this very long tail of interests – into a “circle of knowledge-building and sharing.”

Perhaps the formal curriculum of schools will encompass both a minimal core “that gets at the essence of critical thinking,” paired with “passion-based learning,” where kids connect to niche communities on the web, deeply exploring certain subjects.

Education will become “an act of re-creation and productive inquiry,” that will form the basis for a new culture of learning.

Relearning Learning: Applying the Long Tail to Learning

Alan Kay's antidote to the dumbing down of public education.

Viewpoints Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving both general education and understanding of complex systems, especially through the use of new inventions in interactive constructive computing.

We want to help children develop real fluency in many important areas of learning, including thinking, math and science. "Thinking" is a higher category than "just" math, science, and the arts. It represents a synthesis of intuitive and analytical approaches to understanding the world and dealing with it.

Kay has assembled quite an impressive Board of Advisors.

About Viewpoints Research Institute

"I think the most general claim here is that a lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it."

These conclusions, if accurate, would seem to have broad applications. Students should be taught to follow their interests earlier in their schooling, the better to build up their skills and acquire meaningful feedback. Senior citizens should be encouraged to acquire new skills, especially those thought to require "talents" they previously believed they didn't possess.

Follow up with Charles Handy:

L2L: Clearly, education is key to equipping people for the world. What do you see as the future of our school systems?

CH: I think that one trend that's coming is that every child should understand at an early age his or her intelligence profile. This follows psychologist Howard Gardner's idea that there are several different kinds of intelligences -- analytical, interpersonal, practical, physical, musical, and so on. People simply have different aptitudes. Once we have identified those, we can design an individual curriculum which, for at least half of the school time, concentrates on developing those particular intelligences, irrespective of the core base of the teaching.

It's already beginning to happen. Middle-class parents now say, "We want more emphasis on music, want more emphasis on sporting abilities -- and we will pay for that outside of school." The school day should be split in two. The first half is what you might call a required, common curriculum, taught by schools. The second half is an individual curriculum in which many outside organizations take part -- work organizations, community organizations. These activities may be organized by the school, but they may or may not take place in school. The school becomes a kind of broker for learning.

When it works properly, every young person will leave school with a personal portfolio of competence, including many more items than the classroom captures.

A Star Is Made | NYT Freakonomics

Check out this recent Friedman piece:

The more I travel, the more I find that the most heated debates in many countries are around education. Here's what's really funny -- every country thinks it's behind.

"We have a creative problem in this country [India]."

"We must allow our students to ask why, not just keep on telling them how."

It's interesting that Tom Friedman is syndicated in Venezuela.

Today's NYT has an article about Wu Man, a Chinese musician, in which she confirms Friedman's reporting:

"She's a 21st-century musician, meaning she knows something deeply, and not only playing the instrument. She can work with anybody in a short time. She can figure out what somebody knows, what they don't know. People say she's put the pipa on the contemporary page."

This after wondering whether she would be able to keep up her career in the United States. "I had initially been prepared to give up music," Ms. Wu said. "I thought I was going to end up studying computers like my friends."

For a sample of America's strategy in education, read Technically Foolish:

This proposal is drawing national attention as visionary, though it is more remarkable for the manner in which it neatly illustrates the problems with how we think about technology and schooling.

Absent in Michigan, and often elsewhere, is serious thought about how technology might help cut costs or modernize educational delivery.

There is no reputable analysis suggesting that the billions invested in technology have enhanced the productivity or performance of America's schools.

Everyone can use another degree, right?

"People think I'm crazy when they hear I'm getting my second master's degree at 27," says Krumm. "But I felt the degree was necessary to switch the direction of my life."

And now for something completely different:

Georgia is about to become the first state to approve the use of the Bible as a textbook in public schools.

But if you thought America was in bad shape, check out France:

The point of the new labor law is to encourage businesses to hire young people without worrying they'll be stuck with them forever. Youth unemployment has been one of France's biggest problems for 30 years. A quarter of those under 25 are jobless; that figure surpasses 40 percent in the troubled suburbs. It's an enormous failure: young people have never been better prepared or educated than today, yet France offers them hardly any future apart from temporary jobs and unpaid internships.

No one in France wants to be "flexible"; stable jobs are the best paid and the most prestigious. It's telling that the students at the elite grandes écoles have been slow in joining the protests: promised a better future than the graduates of the less illustrious universities, they figure that flexibility doesn't concern them.