What is Important in Education: Character

The United States puts a lot of money and faith in education, but what is important in helping people live successful and happy lives? The New York Times had an article yesterday on a team of psychologists at Penn (my alma mater), which stress elements of character, but not just "moral" elements of character, but elements of character which lead a person to be a better performer. The group at Penn seven key character traits: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity. For my STS302H class, we might think of this as an update on Benjamin Franklin's virtues. One big theme in the history of technology is that people constantly fail or hit walls in what they do. The virtue of "grit" emphasizes the need to keep going in the face of difficulties. These traits are a reminder that a GPA is not the only reason we go to college or seek education.

Sell Big or Die Fast

In History 341 today we will be talking about Gothic Cathedrals, which sometimes took a hundred years (hundreds of years) to build. To think about how quickly things move in our times, an article in the New York Times recently discussed how companies were quickly pulling the plug on products if it became apparent that something wasn't doing well. HP's tablet computer only lasted on the market for 48 days. Today's business environment is so competitive, companies believe that if their product is not a hit right away, it never will be. Given that this is the environment, one can certainly understand why companies might not want to hire a lot of new workers. For a point of comparison, in the classic case of a business failure, the Ford Edsel, Ford stuck with it for two years before killing it.