Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Thiel Conundrum

We have a new show up. It's called The Thiel Conundrum, and it's a lively discussion of the merits of the Thiel Foundation's 20 Under 20 Fellowship Program (In which 20 people under 20 years of age are given $100,000 to "stop out of school" and focus on developing scientific or technical projects).

By the way - during this show, there are two mentions of literature with which Danny takes issue. The first deals with the possible negative effects of traditional education on high-achieving students, and the second deals with how teachers say they want creative students by don't actually want them in their classrooms. I said that I would find that literature and post it here...here it is (read it yourself to judge its quality):

1. A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students
2. Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom

2 comments:

  1. Patrick,
    Thanks for the post...I clearly have to catch up and respond to this one and the CARE post. By the way, thanks for the second article; however, the first one is just the abstract (to most people). I'll see if I can find a way to get the full article and process it before posting here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Comparing this foundation's program to the proposed funding to reform U.S. education by Drs. Dwight Allen and William Cosby in their book, "American Schools: The 100 Billion Dollar Challenge", I find the Thiel Foundation's investment to be too small for something to really help change the status quo. Perhaps, this is a pilot-study; however, it seems to be more of a reach for intellectual property. I'll look forward to seeing what they do beyond this particular program. I couldn't agree with Simon more (did I just write that??) when he states that they aren't generating anything more than profit.

    Looking forward to the 'proof in the pudding', especially if it is a good tapioca pudding or bread pudding.

    ReplyDelete