Prof. Feynman: "The problem is ... "

Prof. Feynman (@ProfFeynman) tweeted  on Sat, May 29, 2021:

"The problem is not people being uneducated.
The problem is that people are educated just enough to believe what they have been taught, and not educated enough to question anything from what they have been taught." 🧠  https://t.co/YgTiGXABMT

 
Shared from Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProfFeynman/status/1398492567017197573

Who is Richard Feynman? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

Official website -> http://www.richardfeynman.com/

 

The problem is not people being uneducated

"You can make a mess, but you have to clean up after yourself."

Not just another TED Talk. This caught my eye for a couple of reasons. I will be in Hong Kong for work next month. Cesar's approach to involve the children in problem solving is repeatable.

Given the discussion about the low voter turnout Franklin has, and some comments that when parents brought their children into the high school to see the voting process, they were good. Well behaved, interested in what went on. One was reported to be making ballots and playing election when they got home.

"At the Harbour School in Hong Kong, TED Senior Fellow Cesar Harada teaches citizen science and invention to the next generation of environmentalists. 

He's moved his classroom into an industrial mega-space where imaginative kids work with wood, metal, chemistry, biology, optics and, occasionally, power tools to create solutions to the threats facing the world's oceans. 

There, he instills a universal lesson that his own parents taught him at a young age: "You can make a mess, but you have to clean up after yourself."

You can watch Cesar Harada tell his story here: (about 10 minutes)

Pothole season

This info was updated here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2018/02/pothole-weather-reminder-to-use-dpw.html



With the changing weather, this is prime time for potholes. As announced previously, you can use your smart phone (and the built in GPS) to report a pothole. If you don't have a smart phone, you can also do so online.

You can follow this link from the DPW page
http://town.franklin.ma.us/Pages/FranklinMA_DPW/General_Pages/report_an_issue

or go directly to SeeClickFix.com and find the Franklin, MA page
http://seeclickfix.com/franklin_4


Walking on Saturday, I reported the pothole which is continuing to grow in front of the Rome Restaurant. Someone else reported it on Sunday.
http://seeclickfix.com/issues/887834-pothole?s=nearby

pothole by Rome Restaurant

You can also report problems with street lights and with traffic lights. It is anticipated other problems will be added to this system over time.

Teach real math through computer programing

In this TED Talk, Conrad Wolfram says:

... the part of math we teach -- calculation by hand -- isn't just tedious, it's mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming.

This is a full TED Talk, it will last 17 minutes but it is well worth it.



I remember struggling with word problems for a time in my early schools days. Some additional help was required and then one day, it clicked. I realized that the words could indeed be changed to an equation, that the equation could indeed be solved. Since then, problem solving has been one of my strengths. Not even the world's worst word problem stops me any more:

If a hen and a half laid an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long would it take a monkey 

with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a dill pickle?

Once I found this problem in Tom Robbins novel "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", it went to memory and hasn't left yet.

Do you have a memorable word problem?



Franklin, MA