

Craig Barrett Takes On Vivek Wadhwa In The Tech Education Debate - cwan
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/craig-barrett-takes-on-vivek-wadhwa-in-the-tech-education-debate/

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lotharbot
_"start recognizing that hiring content experts in K-12 is more important than
hiring someone who has studied education pedagogy for 4 years. Just imagine
how many folks interested in STEM want to take all those School of Education
classes to get their teaching certificate."_

This was the best comment in the entire article.

When my wife and I were in grad school (math for her, applied math for me) we
were both interested in teaching. But the system put a lot of extra hurdles
and disincentives in our way:

\- Certification required an extra year and a half of lame classes, at great
out-of-pocket expense.

\- Teaching pays significantly less than engineering, and has less room for
advancement and intellectual improvement.

\- Teachers don't get a whole lot of respect from parents, students, or
society in general.

\- I spent some time in a public school classroom as a specialist, and was
surprised by the lack of professionalism from teachers and administrators. I
had an administrator warn me that if I didn't hold specific political views,
I'd get yelled at. Sure enough, one teacher angrily demanded to know why I
wasn't voting for her favorite candidate (though I'd never said anything to
her about it -- that info was spread to her behind my back). It was made very
clear to me that I wasn't _personally_ welcome in that environment.

\- Teaching (at least in the public schools) is heavily unionized. Advancement
doesn't seem to be directly merit-based. Seniority, politics, and being in
with certain "cliques" seem to be important.

After grad school, I spent four years teaching STEM concepts for a museum with
a large K-12 outreach program. Based on teacher, parent, and student comments
and on performance evaluations, I'm pretty sure I would have been a great
classroom teacher. But it simply wasn't worth the extra time, money, and
effort to get a low-paying, low-advancement job in a politically hostile
environment.

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Arun2009
I find it TRAGIC that investment in science education is seen purely from an
economic perspective. Look at the keywords Barret uses: "development,
productivity improvements, and growth"! "determinant of economic growth"!
"work force expertise in STEM"!

These considerations are NOT what inspired mankind's greatest scientific
thinkers and philosophers to devote their lives to their pursuits. The major
theme to stress instead should be "the study of reality and truth". We all
hunger to know "The Truth". Just ackowledge this basic human tendency then.
That's all it takes.

India especially is pissing away its advantage of having a culture that places
a high regard on education. At my home we had days set apart in a year where
we literally worshipped books!
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Puja#Kerala>)

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bokonist
In my observation, it is not the number of engineering graduates that
determines technological growth, but rather, the opportunities in technology
that determine the number of graduates.

If relative wages in engineering rise, more students will major in engineering
fields. Workers and students in non-tech fields will buy a few books, study
after hours, and teach themselves to code.

The main problem is that for high ability people, engineering pays less than
Wall St, law, medicine, and certain types of government work. Out of my
college class, almost no one studied engineering or went into engineering.
Instead they went to Wall St, Med School, Law school, or Washington DC.

If society wants to increase technological development, it must end the
financial bailouts that create such great profits for bankers, and simplify
the legal code to put the lawyers out of work.

------
credo
Wadhwa says "Indian and Chinese engineers and scientists are often national
heroes. Here, our kids idolize football players and rock stars."

Yesterday, I had replied to Wadhwa's tweet saying that he was mistaken in this
comparison.

In India, cricket players and movie stars are adored and idolized. OTH most
Indians wouldn't even be able to name the top scientists/engineers in the
country (let alone idolize them).

I think Wadhwa is pointing to a genuine issue (of rock stars and football
players being more popular than engineers or scientists), but making bogus
claims to raise fear (of Indian or Chinese competition) isn't the right way to
address this issue - especially when it should be clear that India is very
much alike the US in this respect (though it is "cricket player" instead of
"football player" ...)

~~~
code_devil
I think Wadhwa is correct. I noticed the same since I moved here in 2001 as an
Undergrad for CS.

\- Indians in India do enjoy(or say Worship) Cricket, but out of a population
of 1+ Billion ONLY 11 Indians make it to the International team and that's
where all the money is (or atleast used to be since India started IPL since
last year)

\- In the US, the population is way less and you have multiple sport avenues
(Football, Basketball, Baseball, + many more) with multiple teams. So the
success factor in pursuing a sports dream is more practical. And even if you
don't reach the top, you can still find a descent job with a BS degree,
assuming you completed. On the contrary, in India you are pretty much doomed
if you put all your energies into sports and it does not pan out your way. The
Ratio of the Number of Educated Population to the Number of Jobs is very high.

The top scientists from BARC, ISRO are very well known are literally treated
like national heroes. And so are the 11 cricketers from the Indian National
Team. Most people don't know the name of Hockey Players(apparently our
National Game), ... at the most only 1 person per sport (other sports) might
be known by people.

===

I noted another point from the article.

Craig Barret is very right when he says American Kids run after Interest and
Indian's go more after the money. It's the same population and competition
issue. If India had a 'normal' population, I am pretty sure many would have
pursued their interest rather than the Success Formula ...

Engineering (preferred IIT) + MBA (from IIM) = Nice Paying Job

PS: In HS = You NEED to have Physics, Maths, Science to be eligible for
Engineering School. This is the same as Freshman level material we do in
colleges out here.

Too be honest I think if you(most Indians) end up doing an MBA right after
Engineering without any work experience, what is the whole point of slogging
through Highschool to get into the Top Engineering Colleges to only end up
being into Business School. And Yes, similarly applying to Grad School in US
is another way to chase that dream and then apply for PhD. On the contrary my
american friends in Undergrad here ONLY pursued a masters/phd if they had a
genuine interest in it.

Now with a lot of Immigrants coming, it's indirectly creating the same problem
we have in India. Too many educated people, so more competition for the number
of jobs and hence people born here might also have to someday stop focusing on
their dreams(sports, music, etc whatever it be) and live in a cut throat
environment making sure they have a job, which is really sad.

~~~
credo
>>The top scientists from BARC, ISRO are very well known are literally treated
like national heroes. And so are the 11 cricketers from the Indian National
Team.

You must be kidding.

This is obviously just an opinion (since I can't point to data), but I'd say
that the number of people in India who know the name of a scientist at BARC or
ISRO is a tiny fraction of the number of people who know Sachin Tendulkar
(cricket) or Shahrukh Khan (movies)

Cricketers and movie stars have millions of fans in India. I'd think that the
average Indian wouldn't be able to name a single scientist currently working
at ISRO or BARC

------
Maven911
I favor Vivke's point of view, what's lacking in tech research is that a lot
of jobs are being outsourced.

The same could be said for non-research jobs, but tech development, support
jobs too.

