As an entrepreneurial technologist (ET), I quiz my sons periodically
regarding what amazing things they they are learning in technology
class so that I could fill in any gaps and impart my own experiences
and fascination. I have been dismayed to learn that “tech” class has
seemingly come to be about using technology and not about
understanding technology. It seems a shortcoming in our educational
system that a high school graduate hasn't even a rudimentary
understanding of the astonishing technologies that he or she takes
for granted almost every waking minute of every day. Observe the
blank stares when you ask high school graduates to describe the
basic utility of a transistor, even when they are carrying upwards of
100 million of them in their pockets.
This is particularly distressing in an environment where we as a
nation are consuming public and private resources to get tech talent
to immigrate so we can fulfill industry needs. Because (in part) of
the ever rising standards of living in the emerging economies, this is
becoming more and more difficult: In 1977, 80% of STEM-trained
graduates from India chose to move to the US. By 2013, that
number was 16%. According to the president of Carnegie Mellon
University Subra Suresh, 20% of college graduates in China were
awarded STEM degrees. This is two times the percentage as the EU
and 4.5 times the percentage as the US. Further, only 1.4% of all college
graduates in the US are STEM women.1 How can this be so during a
time when demand clearly outstrips supply as evidenced by starting
salaries for newly-graduated engineers? I believe that popular media
(The Big Bang Theory, Fangasm, King of the Nerds, etc) is partially to
blame by painting a nerdy and pedantic picture of those that have
such proclivities, a poison pill for an impressionable teen socialite. Of
course, this is a situation of our own making (these shows wouldn't
be popular if they weren't reinforcing popular stereotypes). Which is
all the more reason to expose a contrary, and profoundly more
1 http://nation.time.com/2013/09/20/what-u-s-needs-to-be-the-leader-in-stem-again/
accurate, view. And while efforts such as robotics clubs, maker
spaces and access to graphical programming tools are laudable,
these opportunities are generally utilized by those who need no
convincing to pursue a career in technology. The challenge is to light
a spark in those that have no such predisposition, or are reticent to
“come out” for fear of being stigmatized. As proposed by W.B. Yeats
- “Education is not filling buckets; it is lighting fires”. Or in the words
of French poet Antoine de Saint-Exupery - “If you want to build a
ship, don’t gather people to collect wood and don’t assign them
tasks and work, but rather, teach them to long for the immensity of
the sea.” What we have is not a crisis of content, but rather a crisis
of commitment.
Ignorance fuels trepidation, and trepidation has the potential to
drive poor public policy. At a time when the pace of technological
advancement is accelerating (in no small part due to globalization),
we simply cannot afford to bear that burden. Career path aside, who
wouldn't benefit from basic knowledge of the construction of a
computer? As the person responsible for IT services in my
household, this would indeed be a welcome development (no
disrespect intended to any family members reading this), a
sentiment very likely echoed by IT professionals.
The perceived promise (or fear!) of technology is largely about
context. While we have command of some utterly terrifying
extinction-event-capabilities, one would be hard-pressed to make a
convincing argument that technology in aggregate has been a bad
thing. Particularly considering the impossibly minuscule time span
I’ve been on this Earth, the fact that my life has become
immeasurably better due to advances in health care, transportation,
communication, and so on is nothing short of extraordinary, but this
context is lost on an 18-year-old that has taken all of these things for
granted. How is one to long for the ocean when they’ve never left
the desert? When asked what benefit of the space program would
justify its enormous cost, Neil Armstrong told the story of his first
view of low-earth orbit where he could see first-hand the thickness
of the atmosphere relative to the size of the earth and the reaches
of outer space. From the ground, the atmosphere appears infinite,
but from low earth orbit it appears as thin as paper. The benefit is a
more complete perspective, a gift that allows us to know our reality
as it is and not what we wish is to be.
For all of these reasons, I propose a fundamentally different
approach to address these failings. I propose a tech-ed curriculum
that:
• Clearly and succinctly delivers a layman's picture of the
fundamental building blocks of tech gadgets from the bottom
up, concurrently providing foundational knowledge as required
• Illustrates the big picture lifecycle of such devices with tie-ins
to career paths that require a diverse mix of both technical
and non-technical acumen
• Imparts a sense of wonder and context by traversing the
spectacular history and promising future of technology
• Promotes engagement by focusing on interaction over lecture
and concepts over rigor
• Addresses the “nerd” stigma by exposing the more complete
picture of what it takes to succeed in a tech career – creativity,
communication skills, etc
• Explains that there are new formulas for success for
passionate and talented individuals that didn't exist when they
started middle school
• Incites a keen interest in an engineering career by showing
that it promises a lifetime of discovery and accomplishment,
and not just for geeky cave-dwellers
• Makes a technology career more accessible by decomposing
seemingly abstruse concepts into easily digestible pieces,
shining some light inside the black boxes
• Provides a counterpoint to the popularized technology-driven
dystopia, where the robots are evil, computers turn against us,
and aliens are universally obsessed with humanity's
destruction
• Presents the material in a fashion that captivates even those
that are constantly drinking from the multimedia fire hose
through innovative captive-audience marketing.
I'll be the first to admit faithfully conforming to the popular
stereotype – girls were an afterthought until college, fashion and
hygiene were secondary to figuring out that last little bug, yada
yada yada. But over the years I realized that my talents lie not so
much in the trenches of RF circuit design, but as one that organizes
and inspires, and have come to realize those skills are important too
(as all those in between). This combination of hard and soft skills has
been and will continue to be a powerful innovation catalyst; the
passion is palpable, and the drive to solve problems nothing short of
extraordinary, in such places as silicon valley, Boulder and Boston.
Many of these innovators have not pursued (probably for very good
reasons) an engineering career, but they ALL have taken the
frightening leap of faith into the black box, and come away with the
realization that “Hey, I can do this!”. Imagine what could be
achieved if that realization was a fundamental component of every
incipient career.
As technology becomes more and more ubiquitous and
indispensable, these stereotypes become more and more
anachronistic. But we all know cultural change occurs glacially,
whereas technological change occurs at the speed of light, and it
doesn't take an engineering degree to know which one is faster.
Tony Dobaj
ET at large