While looking after some information about Creative Commons I happened to drop by the home page of the founding director of the project, Hal Abelson (which by the way is also partly responsible for some other wonderful things like the MIT OpenCourseware) and was pointed out to this 1957 Memorial Lecture by Edwin Land, president of Polaroid Corp, entitled “Generation of Greatness” I want to share it with all of you, as I think it pretty much contains the essence of things many of us think need to change in universities, especially in Technical Schools
He is given courses, he is instantly given tests, and he is given examinations. Now I ask you, if this is preparation for life, tell me where, where in the world, where in the relationship with our colleagues, where in the industrial domain, where ever again, anywhere in life, is a person given this curious sequence of prepared talks and prepared questions, questions to which the answers are known? Where again is he ever marked in this way? Where again is a structure of authoritarianism masked by the genuine friendliness of the democratic people who are his leaders? Where ever again is a person brought to the day of judgment every single week?
One may be inclined to say: After all, it’s just part of a system. But consider this: The first thing a mark tells you is whether what you said is true. When the professor says, “Hand back what I said,” the professor is telling the student that what he, the professor, said is true. Now the role of science is to be systematic, to be accurate, to be orderly, but it certainly is not to imply that the aggregated, successful hypotheses of the past have the kind of truth that goes into a number system.
If we wonder why so few pupils survive the university system in the country today — survive to come out asking the right questions, feeling free to question the authority of science although they have mastered the techniques — I suspect it starts here.
Let´s face it: most of the things we are being teached at College level are not exactly oriented the way they should. How come senior Computer Engineering students aren´t enthusiast about how to program effectively or work in groups? How come an Electrical Engineer can lack of curiosity and know-how on basic experiments? Shouldn’t all the Telecommuncation Engineers be keen on Robotics, amateur radios and antennas, or electronic devices? We get out from college when we are in our twenties, and somehow we manage to lose most of the interest in our field of knowledge while studying engineering.
I should say I find science and engineering absolutely amazing fields. Things you can uninterruptedly read about and always be sure that there are more and more things to know and look after with wonderment. Things that help you understand the world that you live in and, who knows, maybe even change it someday. But I should sadly admit that college has not been exactly the place to encourage this thinkings. This is something that maybe someday we will also be able to change.
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