Neil deGrasse Tyson on making meaning, learning, curiosity, influence, excelling & empowerment

[ancianita]

[AZLD4Candidate]

1. Hey Neil. I taught all of those in school and still do in my private school in China

It's the parents and spineless admin, along with grandstanding politicians, that handcuff real education.

[ancianita]

2. Glad to hear this.

I was going to make a similar claim on behalf of public schools -- that, while such ideas are not officially part of school curricula, they are often learned through thoughtful professional educators, as random a learning as it might appear.

That said, his individual story of getting to Cornell, and randomly meeting with Carl Sagan, actually proves that public schools work.

That he levies blame on a public institution that has suffered centuries of underfunding combined with perverse criticism for underperforming, overlooks the reality that this is exactly what elites want.

How curiosity is squashed is revealed by his examples of parents, not schools. But then he goes on to blame schools.

His best idea, imo, is about the existence of internet driven tribalism: "In a pluralistic society, you want to celebrate differences, rather than go out of your way to establish differences, and then claim that one group is better than another."