American Education

I just remembered I do have something to write about. This weekend the founder of FIRST Robotics and an inventor of many things Dean Kamen, was in Hawaii. I was able to go to two of his presentations on Saturday but was unable to go to the main one yesterday because I was taking my AP Physics test. Although his presentation may not have been much differnt I better understood his message. The main idea of FIRST is that the problem with the American education system is not that education is not properly available, but that youth do not want it. The main problem is the culture of american. America almost spends more money on education than the rest of the world combined. More students want to be celeberties and athletes than scientists or engineers. So the main idea of FIRST is to get students interested in science and technology through means that people are familiar with. FIRST was created to be a sport with a short season, TV friendly competition, and an element of luck involved in the game. Since then, FIRST has been extremely sucessful. FIRST alumni are 50% more likely to go to college, 3X more likely to major in engineering, and many other statistically significant changes to peoples lives.