Mining For Hidden Gems

When my eldest daughter started as a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin, she got a T-shirt that said: What starts here, changes the world.  Today I got to see her recognized for her academic achievements over the past four years, and I can't think of a more apt way of congratulating her:  What you started here, will change the world.  I am so proud that her highest aspiration at this moment is to make this world a better place.  The ceremony today honored the highest achieving students at the University, based only on their GPA.  The honor student selected to address the audience was Kelly Moynihan, Senior in Biomedical Engineering.  She is also the recipient of a $250,000 fellowship from the Hearst Foundation and a $90,000 National Science Foundation Grant to pursue her graduate studies at MIT.  Her speech, however, was about what has been the most meaningful experience of her undergraduate life at UT:  Mentoring. She has been part of ...

I heard the most amazing story the other day.  It turns out that to make foie gras – goose liver – they hold down the poor bird, stick a tube down its throat and force-feed it so that its liver grows to several times its normal size.  Apparently, goose liver is quite a delicacy, not that I have ever tried it.  And now that I know how it is made, I probably never will.  But the story was really about a Spanish farmer who has found a completely humane way to make foie gras.  He has come to learn that geese are programmed by their DNA to gorge themselves in preparation for the cold, winter months.  So he surrounds his geese with delicious varieties of grass and other scrumptious food such as nuts, olives and figs and lets them roam free and feed themselves to their heart’s desire.  The catch is that the geese must truly believe that they are free.  So there are no fences, no loud humans threatening to catch them; just pure freedom, while surrounded ...

Without a doubt the event that changed my life profoundly was the birth of my children.  From the moment my first child was born, I have not made a decision or taken a path without first considering how they would be affected.  Even my perspective of the world and its events is now shaped by the emotions I feel for my two daughters and two sons.  However, the significance of their birth has been in teaching me lessons that I would not have otherwise learned.  Here are three of the things I have learned from my children: 1.  Never give up on anyone .  When my children were very small, I thought they would never wear shoes or eat anything other than plain rice or pasta.  I thought they would never go to bed by themselves.  I thought my children would never learn to get along and enjoy each other's company.  There have been moments when I thought that we would never get past a certain struggle.  But as the years have gone by and they have...

1.   All  caterpillars turn into butterflies. 2.  No one knows the exact moment when a butterfly will emerge from its cocoon. 3.  If you try to "help" a butterfly out of its cocoon, it will die. 4.  Not all butterflies are Monarchs. 5.  Moths have the same life cycle as butterflies. They are just introverted.

At first it sounds really good, doing college work in high school, entering university with one or two semesters of course work already under your belt.  Why not, if the student is motivated and able to do the work? Wouldn't it be more challenging and engaging anyway?  But then, I hear phrases like "that way you won't have to take English, History or Algebra ever again" or "you can get your basics out of the way for free".  That's when I get scared.  I imagine a generation of college graduates entering the work force as teachers, lawyers and journalists, who last examined the world's history when they were fifteen years old and more worried about where that pimple came from than who built the pyramids and how?!  I think of those entering politics and civic life who read a work like Animal Farm back when they were more pre-occuppied with getting a date to the homecoming dance than with what happens when those who lead think that the end justifies the...

What constitutes a “good” school?  As a parent, and now as an educator, I have been asking that question for at least 21 years (That’s how old my oldest child is!).  My own parents’ life quest was to provide me with “good” schools, no matter the expense and trouble of finding one, including moving to another continent.  One of my friends has home schooled her nine children (adopted and biological) because their thirst for knowledge has never been satisfied by the public schools where she has lived.  My other friends have looked for magnet and charter schools within their home districts in hope of a more challenging, rigorous education that will prepare their kids for college.  But is preparing kids for a college education in and of itself what makes a school “good”?  What should be the ultimate goal of education?  I believe that we are here to know and to love.  Consider the notion of knowing about and loving all that is in and around us as the ...

In 1976, I was an eighth grader living in Tehran, Iran.  The previous year, the Shah, the King of Iran, had put in place a universal mid-morning snack program, where milk, juice and cake or cookies were given out to children at 10:00 a.m. every morning in every school in the country.  I guess it was his way of sharing the oil wealth with the masses.  My affluent classmates, however, having had a full breakfast, sometimes found other uses for the snack items.  Once when a policeman was hit by a milk carton thrown from a second story window, our new assistant principal, Mrs. Momeni came in to give our class a lecture.  She was new to our school and we had not quite figured her out yet.  She didn't shout or insult.  She just told us about the school where she had come from.  It was one in the south part of the city, the poor side, where if a child was absent, his mother would come to collect his snack because that was his only meal for the day. ...