Jan 11, 2004
Today I went to a lecture (hosted by the New York Times) where a truly amazing man, Dean Kamen, spoke. My friend Bill had two tickets, but couldn't go because he's a great dad, so he gave them to Lon, who invited me. Thanks Bill & Lon!
For those of you who don't know, Dean is the guy who's company invented the Segway. My friend Lon suggests that if you're interested in the Segway, you may be able to find more information at Amazon's Segway store.
Anyway, while Dean and his company, Deka Research have made unbelieveable inventions geared towards healthcare, what really struck me is Dean's philosophy on education. He said several times how silly it is that our schools and our country in general, will do whatever it takes to ensure our sports teams are #1 in the world - while it seems as though the fact that we are 19th in education is tolerable. He had a very important point - the problem isn't a lack of money/resources, or as he put it "supply" - we commit more money to education that any other country. He said the problem is "demand"- students aren't absorbing information. As such, he decided to do something about it, and ten years ago he founded a project called FIRST, which I suggest you read about (I'm considering volunteering with them). With regard to FIRST, he made some very important points:
1. He decided to organize FIRST and administer it as if it was a sport - so as to energize students to get excited about the projects. He pointed out that its difficult to excite students about a science project being done individually in the basement of the school when they see all the fanfare dedicated to athletics.
2. He made the program "team" based, to help students learn to work together. This point was the most poignant to me.
I've read many books on management, as well as autobiographies (most recently, "JACK Straight from the Gut" - which I highly recommend), and one of the things that Jack Welsh, as well as others point out over and over is that team-work is one of the most important virtues to make an organization successful. That said, I don't remember many times in school where we as students were genuinely encouraged to practice team work. More often than not, it was about individual success, and "beating" the other guy. Dean Kamen mentioned that in school, working together was often called cheating - which is a stretch to some extents, but not always.
In a conversation a little while ago with Bill, he mentioned that it would be great if people in organizations could all acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, and all work together - even if that meant that some work in the mail room and others be the top-dogs, but as we know, that rarely, if ever, happens.
I believe that while there are many things wrong with our educational system here in the U.S.,
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