What if you were given the chance to design a new school from scratch? And there was no need to follow the typical education model: a teacher at the front of a classroom lecturing to 25 to 30 seated students. No need to follow an existing curriculum, either. You could completely re-imagine what a good education is all about.
What kind of school would you make?
One person who took that question on—and came up with an intriguing answer—is Diane Tavenner, founder of Summit Public Schools, which operates some of the top-performing schools in the nation.
In her new book, Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life , Diane shares the story of how she designed a new kind of charter school with a simple but very ambitious goal: “We wanted to teach kids not just what they needed to get into college, but what they needed to live a good life.”
I just found out there’s a Summit school in Daly City:
Actually maybe you are right. Nature trumps nurture when it comes to executives and leaders:
When participants in a study were shown pictures of male employees of a business consultancy, with similar clothes and masked faces, they perceived the taller men more positively in terms of team leadership skills. Indeed, research has shown that taller and more attractive men earn more than their shorter and plainer colleagues.
Another business advantage for men turns out to be a face with a higher-than-average width-to-height-ratio. Research showed how square-jawed men negotiated higher signing-on bonuses for themselves than longer-faced, round-jawed peers.
Applicants deemed attractive by independent scorers were 20% more likely to get an interview than the same application without a photo. Things are worse for the fairer sex. When photos were included, male jobseekers deemed unattractive were contacted 26% of the time, compared with 7% in the case of unattractive women.
So if you were ugly and short like Jack Ma, your only chance of making to the top is by starting your own firm. Otherwise, forget about it.
Also the preference for square jawed male in America may explain in part why we have so few East Asian CEO’s in top firms here. Indians have more distinguished facial features and there are more South Asian CEO’s like in Google and Microsoft.
Americans always feel East Asians don’t have executive presence It was used by Harvard to disqualify East Asians. If you just want to be a 小人物 making some decent money, USA is an excellent place. Want to be big timers like Jack Ma, Pony Ma or Li Kashing, go back to wherever you’re, China or HK.
Can’t startup in USA. No (non-East Asian) Americans would believe you can ever succeed. The two biggest supporters of early BABA are Yang and Son, both East Asians.
If that is not what you’re aiming to be, any colleges will do, no need to fight to get into Ivy League and outstanding public univerisities.
I am surprised The Economist is still in publication.
What I have been told is that (East) Indians and Americans share a common educational/legal roots tracing back to Britain. Much like Hongkong can trace its root to UK. The Indian languages and the European languages come from the same root.
It is funny. But, Columbus found North America by accident when what he actually wanted to find was a sea route to India because land route between India and Europe was not safe in the middle east in medieval time.
Those Indians are mixed blood, some might actually be a Caucasian. Because of the gene, even if the father is a Caucasian, if mom is an Indian, the child would look like an Indian. Ditto for Black.
According to some study that classify humans into 5-7 races based on genes, Northern Indians are Caucasians and South Indians are East Asians.
I am not talking about genetics and DNA, just the education and the legal system. British brought the English legal system tuned to India and English education between the late 1700 and mid-1800 and after them they left a democratic setup behind (1947). That is why all these countries like India, Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Pakistan are called part of British commonwealth.
Going back to where you come from might have some chance, or go to Singapore Gang Ye is not satisfied squatting in FB or GOOG earning those few hundred thousand dollars, so he went to startup in Singapore. Now he is a billionaire.
It was used by Harvard to disqualify East Asians. If you just want to be a 小人物 making some decent money, USA is an excellent place. Want to be big timers like Jack Ma, Pony Ma or Li Kashing, go back to wherever you’re, China or HK.
Gang Ye is not satisfied squatting in FB or GOOG earning those few hundred thousand dollars, so he went to startup in Singapore. Now he is a billionaire.