Interesting set off toys found in a silver pan tray.
A couple of dogs, some Play-Doh, a crayon, and a fighter plane.
Off to the side (not pictured) are the Legos.
Interesting with what competes with video games and phone apps these days.
(Note: 85% of the world’s toys are now made in China!)
Frankly, there is still a lot to be said for the creative play of yesteryear. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So earlier in the week, I had a great opportunity to visit the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR).
It was fascinating to see the reactor, control room, and all the cool experiments–not things you see every day, right?
For safety, we had to wear devices that measured radioactivity and also go through machines that checked us afterward.
When one person in our group went through the scanner, it went off with a red alert, and the poor individual obviously got really scared–like OMG is there some contamination on me or something.
But they went through again and it turned out it was just a false positive, thank G-d.
I guess these really can be dangerous substances to work around, but still so marvelous how the scientists harness these neutron beams and direct them to all sort of fascinating scientific experiments.
Being around all this science makes me think whether if I could do it all again–wondering aloud–whether I would pursue an education in one of these amazing scientific disciplines and work in the lab like a “mad scientist”–exploring and discovering new things and figuring out the mysteries of the universe and how the world really works.
What a fun, fun field to work in! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal and Art by 4th grader, Phillip Kenney)
So, unfortunately, our education system in this country is highly troubled
Generally, we teach by strict curriculum forcing children to learn what we consider “the fundamentals”.
But they are anything but that and kids come out not knowing how to do the very basics or survive in life.
Test scores have not been improving–that’s not the student’s fault, but the education system, which cannot force feed what students minds are rejecting as “old school” and out of touch.
Not only don’t we fish for them, but we don’t even teach them to fish.
We throw at them esoteric subjects to memorize, spit back, and forget.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
We waste years of their life and the productivity and creativity of society.
Ever really wonder why GDP growth is only around 2% despite all the rapid technology that we are rolling out.
It is just not drones that we are rolling off the assembly line, but human automatons as well.
This is where agile education comes into aspect.
Like with software development, we can gather requirements and build, and then show the customer, and then refine again and again.
We let the development grow and mature naturally as the code takes shape.
No more years of development and voila here’s something for you, and with the customer exclaiming loudly, “What the F*** is that!”
So too with education, we need to follow the spirit and train of thought naturally.
Where we let the students guide the teacher to what their questions are, what they are interested in learning about, where their creative juices take them, and what is relevant.
Rigidity in the education system leaves our students as dead ends, and not as critical thinkers and innovators.
We have a dearth of leaders we can look up to and a plethora of people that couldn’t survive the Spring without their Visa/Mastercard.
Ever wonder why so many of our great innovators are college dropouts who built their companies in their garages instead of occupying a seat in a classroom and filling their heads with teacher rhetoric.
Most people learn by seeing, internalizing, and doing useful things for themselves, not by listening and violently rejecting the irrelevant in their lives.
Let us release the choking reigns of our education system.
Teachers should be able to follow the questions and interests and natural evolution of thought and creativity and wonderment with their students.
The mark of learning is not the answers on a standardized test, but the light bulb of critical thinking and innovation from our progeny.
Exploration and discovery and skills to be self-sufficient and survive are far more beneficial than what we are giving our children today.
We owe them a better education, but we are not delivering because we are the automatons of yesteryear.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I learned that Metrology is the science of measurement.
And measurement is the foundation of scientific research and creating standards.
Scientific research and measurement are about exploration, discovery, and innovation.
Further, it is about finding the facts; it is objective; it is truth; it is essential to maintaining integrity.
Standards also help to ensure dependability, because there is a common reference and you know what you are getting.
A great true story that demonstrates the importance of measurements and standards is the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.
This was the third worst urban inferno in American history.
It destroyed over 1,500 building across 140 acres.
Fire engines responded from as far as New York and Virginia.
But the problem was that they invariably could not help.
Why?
Because their fire hose couplings could not fit on the Baltimore fire hydrants–they were not standardized.
Without standards, we don’t have interoperability.
We don’t have a reference that everyone can go by.
It’s as if we’re all working on our own desert islands.
This defeats the power in numbers that make us together greater than the sum of our individual parts.
Science and technology help us advance beyond just ourselves and today.
Measurement and standardization help us to build a better and stronger society. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I love this art in Jerusalem, Israel.
These big orange overhangs from the lamp poles look almost like big vacuum hoses that are ready and going to suck people literally off the streets.
Can’t you just see the people in mid-air suction, arms and legs flailing all around, yelling “Hey, what’s going on around here!”?
Hopefully, they don’t end up on an alien spaceship somewhere with some weird creatures wanting to explore about us or even use us for food!
Okay, this is what I call Purim spiel–fun for the holiday celebration today.
Seriously though, those orange things are great. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Thought these artist renderings of the Trappist-1 Star were awesome.
NASA discovered this star and 7 Earth-size planets around it that could conceivably have water and sustain human life.
As we continue to gobble up Earth’s resources and build incredibly powerful weapons that may one day soon destroy it, we need to have a viable Plan B.
Hence, the race to find another planet(s) with resources and environmental conditions where human civilization can survive and thrive.
I’m not sure what is more exciting than finding that magic planetary home of the future, where everything is new and pristine again like the Garden of Eden.
A place to go where hopefully we take not only the bits and bytes of our current world, but also the lessons learned to do it better again. 😉
So excited about the new show called MARS (and yeah, it’s on National Geographic).
I watched the season premier and it was awesome!
They did this cool combination flipping between the non-fiction of the here and now on Earth in 2016 with all the plans and advances being made to go to settle Mars someday, and the fictionalized future 2033 actual voyage and colonization there.
The spaceship, rovers, colony are all pretty amazing and it seems so real like we’re practically there!
Elon Musk (SpaceX) does a nice job explaining the vision and the reusable rockets they are focused on to get us cost-effectively to the Red Planet and beyond.
The imperative is clear for us becoming a true multi-planetary species, so that we drastically reduce (hopefully to zero) the risk of an extinction level event to humanity.
There was a good quote that I remember, something like:
“We go into the dark, so others can follow the light.”
The leap forward of us actually making it to and colonizing Mars is so mid-boggling great that just about everything else literally pales in comparison.
Mars is just the first real step…after that the possibilities are truly endless. 😉
(Source Photo: here with attribution to NASA Jet Propulsion Lab)
So work is a revolving door of people onboarding and offboarding.
New people are getting hired.
Old people are leaving.
Nothing is stable.
The relationships you made yesterday just left the revolving door today, and it’s time to make new ones.
One “ran from Dodge.” Another retired. A third left for the private sector. Someone else is going just down the block.
On the inbound train are Summer interns. Contractors being hired on as regular staff. Brand new people. And even some people coming back after leaving for a short time.
People get antsy or have enough doing what they were doing, dealing with who they are dealing, or simply want a change and a challenge.
Others are shown the door under less fortunate circumstances.
Whether looking to pave new trails, find yourself a seat at the table, a leadership position, or a fatter paycheck–the eyes see, and the heart wants.
Some people are tethered to their job or even “retired in place (RIP)”–perhaps it’s truly a great job and fit or it’s like their life blood (their whole identity, their reason for being) or maybe, they just like collecting what they consider “easy money” for a job they know and love or can skate by on, or maybe they work with other great people they really like and every day is a fresh challenge and even fun.
Recents studies indicate that retiring later in life actually increases longevity, but when is enough enough or are we leaving ourselves enough time to sit at the pool side and just enjoy life a little?
Millennials, famous for changing jobs often, now are at an average of 4 jobs by the time they hit 32.
And in Information Technology, job hopping is considered “the world’s biggest game of musical chairs.“
Why the increase in the job hopping bug in people’s you know what?
Sure there is more opportunity for those that have the right skills, and people getting bored or stale is a bad thing, everyone wants to find a good fit for themselves and where they can have a real impact, and economic and social pressures push people to make the leap, perhaps there is also some foolishness involved–where the grass is always greener or not.
Sometimes though it really may be right for the person–and that’s for each to explore and decide for themselves. 😉
(Source Photo: here with attribution to John Garghan)
Fascinating article in the Sunday New York Times today on how the stress we are putting on our kids is making them sick.
With testing of High school students showing incredibly alarming rates of mental illness:
– 54% with moderate to severe depression.
– 80%+ with moderate to severe anxiety.
And 94% of college counseling directors “seeing rising numbers of students with severe psychological problems.”
Even pediatricians are reporting 5-, 6-, and 7-year olds coming in for migraines and ulcers!
Another teacher said with all this, “We’re sitting on a ticking time bomb.”
Under the pressure to get into great schools and get a foot in the door in excellent careers and attain high-paying jobs, we are making our kids work longer school days, do more homework, take more Advanced Placement (AP) exams, participate in numerous extracurricular activities, and achieve, achieve, achieve.
We’ve taken away normal play time–the fun out of life growing up–and the imagination, exploration, and discovery away from kids just being kids.
The paradox is that “the pressure cooker is hurting, not helping, our kid’s prospect for success.”
Especially for parents who themselves grew up poor or lacking, maybe they are trying to do the “right thing”and give their kids more than they had and a “better life.”
But maybe even the best intentions to mold children to be what we want them to be, or think they should or could be, is misplaced.
If only we could all take a little (or BIG) chill pill…you can’t force success–with forcing you get the opposite results.
Back off people–instead of pushing and endless disciplining–how about we listen to the children, guide them, show unconditional love, and be excellent examples–show them integrity, a strong work ethic, along with an appreciation for work-life balance, then perhaps we will get not only the success of the next generation that we all need, but also happier, better adjusted, and healthier children. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So cool!!!
OPM Job announcement today for Astronauts.
Work for NASA at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
Train for missions to the International Space Station, on two new commercial spacecraft, and for the Orion deep-space exploration vehicle.
To go where no man or woman has gone before…
Dreams do come true!;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Paul Hudson)
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