

Studying Engineering Before They Can Spell It - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/education/14engineering.html

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patio11
_In the kindergarten class that was designing homes — none out of hay, wood or
brick — for the three pigs, Ms. Morrow started the lesson by asking the 20
children sitting cross-legged on the carpet if they knew what engineers do.

“They can write poems?” one girl guessed.

“Well,” Ms. Morrow allowed, “they could write a poem about something they
build.”_

I want to comment but fear that I will not be able to maintain civility while
doing so.

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tkahn6
Can you elaborate on what exactly bothers you?

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sliverstorm
The implication that engineers are capable of writing poetry

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hga
I'm sure they/we can write _bad_ poetry. She didn't say it would be good ^_^.

If sufficiently bad it I'm sure it could achieve the design objective:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_characters_from_T...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_characters_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Grunthos_the_Flatulent)

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thought_alarm
Back in my first year of engineering I don't think I knew how to spell the
word. My writing skills coming out of high school were just atrocious.

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pjscott
How did you improve your writing skills? I absorbed mine from reading
recreational books, but I'm curious how other people did it.

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pvdm
Talking to humans improved my writing skills :) Reading about mythology e.g.
Joseph Campbell improved my story telling abilities.

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sliverstorm
I think this is awesome. And, who cares if they can spell it? Engineering is
like a state of mind from which to approach the world. _Spelling_ has never
meant much in this context. It's certainly useful, and dyslexia would make
things hard with serial numbers and technical component names, but I have
always felt the most important part of engineering is the frame of mind. The
sooner they learn about it too, the better.

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techiferous
I honestly thought this was about B.P.

