You guys in the US & friends probably don't see it as clearly. The US focus on self esteem - justified or not - and the vague post-modern concern with various shallow attributes, like gender, background etc., is actually quite stunning to me. I've grown up in a progressive part of the eastern bloc. The schooling in science and math there has traditionally been focused on tangible results.<p>From the year 1 onwards. Unannounced in-class tests used to be common. If you solved the math problem you got good marks, if you didn't you get poor marks. There was nothing judgmental about it. And you could not move into higher education if you didn't have good marks.<p>Let me give you an analogy. Have you met the wacky person on a party who is an awful dancer, but doesn't realise it? You know, like Elaine from Seinfeld. Embarasing, obnoxious and feeling good about it. If it were a child, the US&friends school system would tend to encourage them and telling them how awesome they are, lest their feelings get hurt. An eastern block school would just give them bad marks and let them move on...<p>(And in soviet russia, the party embarasses you!)
These articles always take the same approach: letting us know how lack of students graduating with science degrees hurts our culture and our competitiveness.<p>These articles would be far more interesting and more of a catalyst for change if they could explain how graduating with a science degree can benefit a young person's life.<p>I don't mean abstract benefits like "problem solving skills," either. I mean concrete benefits, like getting a job. For example:<p>Imagine you are 22 and just graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in Physics. You don't have the best GPA, but not bad, either. Let's say a "B" average. You had to program some stuff in one of your classes, but you aren't really a programmer. For whatever reason, you aren't going to graduate school. So, you need to get a job. You'd like to stay somewhere in the upper midwest to be close to your friends and family.<p>What kind of job do you apply to, and where?
I think that if the article's "self-esteem/diversity education = bad" thesis were valid, we'd see problems across the board, but we still seem to graduate plenty of lawyers and doctors, both degrees that require self-discipline, dedication, etc...<p>As someone else noted here, the problem probably has no <i>one</i> cause, but numerous interrelated ones. I have a couple of suggestions to add to the list:<p>a.) Standardized testing -- studies have shown that <i>extrinsic</i> rewards tends to dampen one's <i>intrinsic</i> desire to do something. (In the study, children given a reward for playing with blocks lost interest in them sooner than students who weren't rewarded.) I can't help but wonder whether increased focus on testing -- and the uninspired teaching that goes along with it -- is undermining whatever sense of curiosity and wonder students might have about various subjects. Now, one might note that other cultures (Japan, for example) place even greater weight on testing than we do, but they're more culturally homogeneous and may view science with more esteem. And in poorer countries, an engineering degree might be one of the few paths into the middle class.<p>b.) The nerd factor -- Paul Graham has touched on this. It's always been uncool to be a nerd or to be good at school. I was a loner who had few friends in high school. Has this cultural pressure intensified?<p>c.) Distraction -- hell, I barely have the attention span to skim the newspaper these days. I can't imagine what it must be like with added hormonal turbulence. My cousins (in high school) visited recently and they were on the computer checking facebook every 15 minutes. Is it simply becoming harder to muster the long spans of attention it takes to solve a complicated math problem? Because,<p>d.) Math is the cornerstone. If we made math fun and interesting, interest in science would follow naturally. It saddens me that we seem incapable of doing this.
I have to agree in large part with the author's lament w.r.t. American students. There seems to be a new generation that is especially glib and shallow. There are many counter examples of course, but in general it is no surprise that they are drifting away from tougher fields. And the grade inflation at U.S. universities, oh my...<p>In the final analysis it smells like decline. And yes I agree that it probably has cultural roots.
"Gates has a compelling point — largely because the shortage of Americans holding or pursuing advanced degrees in fields like computer science defies conventional market explanations. The average annual salary in the field is more than $100,000. Meanwhile, we have a robust supply of high-IQ baristas and college graduates with jobs that a generation ago would not even have required a high-school diploma."<p>Where? My first offer was for 50k, increasing to 60k after six months in LA County. Is this a PhD average salary?
On a cultural front, this has a lot to do with role models. The average American grows up associating the pinnacle of achievement not with inventors, professors, or entrepreneurs, but with CEOs, people of relatively mediocre talent who manage to exploit private-sector bureaucracies and navigate their way to the top.<p>US&A : A second-rate producer of scientists, but a world leader at producing bullshitting rainmakers. Yay.