"How to Destroy Young Minds with Decorative Learning"

Image credit: Shortformvideo.

Rita J. King has a recent post up on the Science House blog about a salon on learning and the transformation of the economy, science and and educational system:

Cheap, Easy Recognition
Educator Dan Menelly teaches a philosophical curriculum to students from 119 countries at the United Nations School and serves as an Albert Einstein Fellow at the National Science Foundation, working to shape emerging STEM policy.
Since much of education policy is created by people with kids in private schools, the policies that result tend to be “just good enough for the neighbor’s kid.”
“Teaching should be approached creatively,” Menelly said, “and risks taken in your teaching. The sands are shifting.”
As more schools shift to online models or virtual components of education, Menelly noted that the “dirty little secret” is the mainstreaming of mediocre technology largely because it’s unclear what the best options are for education.
“Teachers can get cheap, easy recognition for badly engineered, decorative learning,” Menelly said.

[Science House: "How to Destroy Young Minds with Decorative Learning"]

Aaron Koblin: Google's Philosopher Artist

We're big fans of Aaron Koblin and his work at Google as we've described in blogposts about his other projects here, here and here. His recent TED talk (above) from this past March is a great window not only into his projects, but his philosophy on art.

Stick through to the end for his crowd-sourced, phonemic-recreation of a Bicycle Built for Two, made famous in my childhood mind by the scene in which the HAL-9000 computer deteriorates.

Tiny Gray Planet with a Volcano

The Atlantic Magazine has a great animation of the recent Icelandic volcano eruption. The image is a powerful illustration of atmosphere, size and scale of the tiny planet we live on.

[Picture of the Day: Icelandic Volcano Eruption from Space ]

Google Creative's New Immersive Music Video: Rome "3 Dreams of Black"

Google Creative's Aaron Koblin in collaboration with music video director Chris Milk has done another amazing feat with music videos on Google Chrome. The latest entry is an immersive, videogame-cum-virtual worlds experience in which you, the viewer, travel along in the music stream with control and affect of the direction and images the song takes you through. (Similar to the Arcade Fire video they did, you can create and share your own experience.) The music is from the new album by Danger Mouse and Daniel Luppi called Rome.

So good.

Experience it: [Google Creative's "Rome: '3 Dreams of Black'"]

via Ben Cerveny.

Also see Google Creative experiments:
[Arcade Fire: The Wilderness Down]
[The Johnny Cash Project]

Teaching Science and Science Teachers in Afghanistan

Rita J. King has a new article up on the Science House website about a fascinating talk by teacher, scientist, educator and teacher-trainer Marianne O’Grady who works in Aghanistan teaching science education to Afghan Science Teachers and administrators. It's an insider's account into a part and culture of the world that is not well understood by the the U.S.

“After the Koran,” O’Grady said, “science is the single most important body of knowledge that people in Afghanistan want. They need more content. They want more labs. In the United States there’s a conflict between religion and science, but there’s no conflict between Islam and science. The Koran talks a lot about science, and it’s just not a bone of contention as it is in the U.S.”
With seven million children in school (and another estimated 40 percent of the nation’s children not in school) the distribution of students is 40 percent girls and 60 percent boys. Afghanistan’s 171,000 teachers are divided along similar gender lines. 79 percent of those teachers aren’t trained, instead they’re often just students who complete a grade level just to turn around immediately and teach it.

[Science House: Teaching Teachers in Afghanistan, by Rita J. King]

Hala's Robot

"We both loved each other," she says about herself and her robot.

Erin Kotecki Vest posted this gem of her daughter Hala reading her Robot Book.

Kids love robots.

Are YOU Creative?

What is creativity? I've been researching this subject for Science House.

This afternoon I've been reading Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, by R. Keith Sawyer. While the book makes some compelling points, the author belabors his perception that no person alone can be creative alone. His goal is to destroy what he calls "creativity myths."

Sawyer contends that inspiration doesn't just happen in a flash, but rather in micro-increments that are then doggedly pursued, edited and developed through the prism of the individual's entire sociocultural dynamic, with little if no original thought. Instead, the best we can hope for is to add novelty, to make a tiny improvement in everything that ever came in our domain before us.

Artists from individualistic societies, Sawyer says, have completely different values from those who come from group-first cultures. Basically what he seems to be saying is that in the United States, artists are more focused on the mythological belief that the individual might actually be creative, while in group-based cultures there's no glamour at all associated with being novel.

It's a pretty binary view, and I would point out that the Ai Weiwei* situation subtly undermines Sawyer's point, but the author repeatedly makes it clear that drawing upon one's own epistemological impressions of reality (including any examples that undermine Sawyer's contentions) only reinforces the myths of creativity. Those examples, he believes, are so statistically improbable and even then, still provide no proof of individual creativity.

He's right on one level, in that creativity isn't just a magic moment but rather a very structured process that can be designed to result in maximum benefit for the participants in the creative system. A creative result always comes from the entire evolution of a domain and field. The great beauty of the Imagination Age is that new domains are arising at the edges of older domains, and new fields of experts are being formed. The new fields of experts have access to a much richer and more diverse talent pool from which to choose the memes that will enter the cultural memory. Here's to creating the future together!

*Want to help get the story of Ai Weiwei's life out there? Check out this Kickstarter project.

Planetary: Stunning iPad Music Viewer

Planetary (voiceover) from Bloom Studio, Inc. on Vimeo.

Ben Cerveny and his team have at Bloom Studios have just released a very cool app for visualizing your iTunes music library. If you don't have an iPad, they've produced the above video to show you what it looks like. I love this.

Review: Sxip Shirey's "Sonic New York"

Sxip Shirey's song "I live in New York City" from his album "Sonic New York."

Earlier this week at Science House I met New York City musician, artist and performer Sxip Shirey who shared his recent album, Sonic New York. I highly recommend it. The album is an acoustic love letter to New York City that travels through back alleys, into long subway rides, and out onto romantic Sunday afternoons in the park and at the market.

Shirey employs a visceral mix of found objects, traditional instruments, layered voices and electronica to create a tapestry of sound that moves you from neighborhood to locale to moments in time.

Songs like "Bergen and Grand," which is evocative in its use of organ grinder sounds of Harry Nilsson's "Think About Your Troubles," from The Point! (my favorite album of all time) transport me to a New York City of yore. The "Brooklyn Bridge Song" is sweet and plaintive and poignant.

I highly recommend Sxip Shirey's Sonic New York -- a wall-of-sound experience and a journey into the narrative mind of music.

[Sxip Shirey's Sonic New York]