Category Archives: Education

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Not Just a Test

Maybe we have so many problems right now that we’re simply at overload, so much so that there is practically no bad news headline that can hold our attention for very long.  We don’t have enough jobs, we’re stuck in two wars, contractors are fleecing our government when they are supposed to be helping with the wars, we are at internal political gridlock, our tax code is horribly broken, our roads and bridges and pipes are giving out, home prices are going in the wrong direction and too many people are stuck underwater with bad mortgages, and mother nature has been serving up an unusual amount of natural disaster pounding.  That’s not all of it, but it’s a lot.  It’s a wonder we aren’t in a worse mood.

So when yet another negative headline comes at us, it is any wonder it’s a one day wonder, if that, and we just don’t have any appetite to deal with it?  No, human nature at a certain point just shuts down, so it’s understandable.  But I think this one is core, and we can’t let it go:

Last week we learned that U.S. SAT scores for reading and writing hit a new low, with math scores also declining.  Here’s a quick summary as noted in the Wall Street Journal:

The results from the college-entrance exam, taken by about 1.6 million students, also revealed that only 43% of students posted a score high enough to indicate they were ready to succeed in college, according to the College Board, the nonprofit that administers the exam. Students had to score a 1550 out of a possible 2400 to meet that benchmark, which would indicate a 65% chance of getting at least a B-minus average in the first year of college, the Board calculated.

Okay, so not everyone does great on tests, it’s an acquired skill, and not everyone is college bound.  What’s the big deal?  Quoting further:

“At the precise time the importance of a college degree is increasing, the ability of the U.S. to compete in a global economy is decreasing,” said Jim Montoya, vice president of the College Board. “We, as a nation, have to do a better job preparing our kids for college.”

Let’s go back to the litany of problems, starting with the one about which President Obama recently gave a special speech to a joint session of Congress and the American People.  In that speech, the President said that right now, Job #1 is Jobs.  Barring some untold natural or unnatural crisis on the horizon, I am guessing that Job #1 doesn’t change through the next Presidential election.  After that, Jobs will probably remain Job #1 until unemployment is below 7% or so, which could be a long, long time — and there is no guarantee that it will ever be corrected, we have no natural entitlement to Jobs.  We have to create them.

Is there not a little irony here?  Is it possible we are trying to solve a problem in the short-term that was created in the long-term and can only be solved in the long-term?  Do we not see a link between falling test scores and an inability to compete?  Perhaps it’s fair to say that’s a little abstract, even obtuse — we all know plenty of well-educated, intelligent people who are out of work, so maybe that’s not the problem.  But let’s try to roll the clock forward a generation or two, at which time it is likely yours truly and many of you will be but particles of dust and memories.  Is there anyone who believes if a lot more than 43% of our kids can’t do better than 1550 out of 2400 that we are going to be the first stop on the investment train?  I’m not talking goosing the scores through prep programs and gaming strategies, I’m talking read the paragraph and answer the question, add the numbers in a column, writing a few coherently linked sentences that make a point.  That can’t be too much to ask for a high majority of the citizens of the #1 economy in the world, unless that doesn’t matter to us anymore either.

How did we slip?  Well, just when we got a little too distracted by so many consumer options created by our magnificent economy, as Thomas L. Friedman told us, the World Got Flat.  Competition for jobs become global.  Demand for commodities became global.  The internet and telecom made easy information exchange global.  Industrial contracts are up for bid regardless of geography.  Lots more people are attending many more years of school in places like India and China — and they are taking school very seriously, as an opportunity and a privilege, a gift that lets them advance the way we thought about education when our middle class was emerging over 100 years ago.

If we don’t think of education as a gift but instead a legal mandate to be tolerated, how do we compete in a world that is flat?  If we don’t use the time we have to be here with each other to absorb the knowledge collective, how much of life have we missed?  If our kids don’t learn math and science and history and language, what kind of leaders will they fall prey to electing?  Learning is at the core of prosperity, fulfillment, and public safety.  Why aren’t we treating it that way?

We can’t afford to let this be just another piece of bad news, another negative headline that just goes by because we are overwhelmed.  If we want to fix the problem at its core, we need to think long-term.  This isn’t unemployment, this isn’t terrorism, this isn’t social security or Medicare, this isn’t the banking system, this isn’t GNP, this isn’t an emergency brought on by the ground shaking or the winds howling or the rivers flooding.  It isn’t even global warming or protecting our precious planet.  I get it, we have a lot of priorities, too much to fix and not enough dough to fix it all.

I would still make our education system our #1 priority — because if we don’t fix that, the other stuff is just going to stay broken.

It’s not just a test.  It’s an evaluation, a form of measurement, a benchmark, an early warning system.  We’re getting bad grades.  We need to do better.  Shame on us for letting it slip to this level.  We either get on it now, or we don’t.

I say hit the books — make that Job #1.

 

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In Honor of E3 – Drawing Lines

And now for something completely different…

E3 — a.k.a. the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo — was held again earlier this month in Los Angeles, where many hope that it will stay.  If you have never attended E3, it cannot be adequately described in words, it is an experience of the senses — loud, visual, politically incorrect, a descent into adolescent decadence as long as what you really want to do is see the latest in new video and computer games coming soon to a device near you, currently invented or otherwise. 

I didn’t get to the show floor this year, just to a nice dinner with former colleagues and some interesting meetings, but immediately prior to the show, I was asked by a college student studying for a degree (gasp!) in videogames for my opinion (horrors!) on issues of censorship in game land.  Here I provide my largely unedited memo to that fellow, to which he recently responded my material made the cut and he received an A on his presentation.  We’ll see if you agree…

College Student Question 1:

What is “the line” for videogame developers in regard to deciding what kind of content is not included?

KG Response:

There are two answers to this question, artistic and business. In terms of artistic, the question is no different from any other art form (literature, painting, film, etc): is it true or “felicitous” to the content? By felicitous the artist implies the necessary use of whatever element of free expression is necessary to make his or her point with the best tactic available to advance the project. Of course this is subjective, but that’s what separates an artist from an amateur, effective application of subjectivity. If as an artist you need to use violence in a certain way to make a point or advance the story, you do so in the most honest and appropriate manner for the effect you need to advance the work. The opposite of felicitous in creative endeavor is gratuitous, meaning the decision is made purely for commercial reason, shock value, impact, or audience effect, what is most often referred to as hack work. When you see a string of cool special effects and all you can say is, “wow, cool special effects” and there is no other point, that’s gratuitous and likely should be edited. An artist uses a filter of appropriateness based on vision, not implication.

On the business or practical side, it is really quite simple, just like the movie business. Someone else is financing your work, whatever rating the entity financing the work wants, you edit to achieve that rating. No question, the marketing reasons will always trump artistic expression when someone else is financing your work to get the best possible return on investment they can. If you don’t like that, finance it yourself, but you will have a very high risk of losing your money because with financing comes distribution.  Abundant marketing and promotion dollars are most often provided by those who have the most skin in the game in a double down strategy, and they are by no means free of hooks, quite the contrary, but with all the noise and competition for mindshare, a good publisher can add tremendous value when you are aligned.  With trust established, the editorial dialogue between publisher and developer can also be immensely satisfying.

College Student Question 2:

How do game developers decide on the level of sensitive, questionable, and possibly offensive content in their games?

KG Response:

To be honest, one of the reasons I took a hiatus from the business a few years ago is because the artistic sensibility was not advancing at the same level as the technology. The majority of auteurs in game development tend to push the technology and pay lip service to its meaning, if any. In most other art forms the artist’s desire to advance spiritually and intellectually tends to develop with the craft and with age. I don’t see that in games as much. It is a very young industry, most often with very short life cycles driving the creative process, which can be great for business because the craft means to sell peer-to-peer, but in terms of thoughtfulness about the greater art form and what goes in and what comes out, I don’t see enough introspection. There are a few, like Will Wright and Shigeru Miyamoto, whose scope has developed with their craft and their tools, but mostly it’s the next generation simply trying to “out cool” the competition.  Sequels and branding increasingly become overpowering forces over freeform imagination and exploration as capital requirements increase, just like movies. That’s just the way it is, not good or bad, just reality.

Zynga has changed some of that with a new paradigm for lightning fast development and iteration in social contexts that is much less demanding of production values, which makes them less dependent on eye candy.  The fast rise of relatively cheap mobile apps is also bringing back a level of independence that allows more experimentation and creative risk.  Yet it would be great to see a few gifted minds really explode the give-and-take storytelling platform (you can’t say “interactive” anymore without drawing sneers) taking a weed wacker to clichés and with subject matter beyond outer space creatures, monster machine guns, dungeon royalty, and various interpretations of the technocrat’s apocalypse.

College Student Question 3:

How seriously do game companies take the critics who claim that video games are terrible for children and the cause of societies problems?

KG response:

Game companies worry about customers and sales. When sales stop because of this or that element, they stop putting it in the game. This too de facto is neither good or bad, it just is. If PR makes a game sell, it’ good. If it makes a game stop selling, it’s bad. This is a business like any other business. If you are not fully responsive to customers you will go out of business. Do you think the people who make Oreos had a sudden revelation about trans fat? No, it made the headlines as a direct link to poor health, sales dipped, and now you have Oreos without trans fat. That is the way capitalism works, and whether it has a spiritual ground is irrelevant, it is the best way known for a business to work. Customer opinion is EVERYTHING because sales reflect customer opinion, especially in a world of social media and internet exchange of unedited public opinion. Noise will always be noise, but sales are not noise.

So what do you think, did we earn our A? Or do you think differently about the lines of censorship in gaming, how they are applied or how they should be applied? Please join the dialogue publicly or privately.  Game On!

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The Learning Window

Last month I enjoyed the immense privilege to spend some time with my high school alma mater — working with some young entrepreneurs on their business plans, attending the annual athletic assembly, and presenting an award at Honors Day.  It was uplifting, it was heartening, it was nostalgic, and it was reflective.  I returned from the visit both inspired and in dread.

Why dread?  All I could think about the entire time I was on campus was why every student in our nation cannot experience this empowerment.  We can afford it, we really can, if we simply make it a national priority.  I do not sense in any conversation I have at large that this is a national priority.  The economy (deficit/debt, job growth, wage growth) is a national priority, defense and combating terrorism are national priorities, health care, and infrastructure all seem to be national priorities — it would seem this is because our political culture is largely reactive, that’s how winning elections are mostly conducted.  Yet can any of these priorities be met without a proactive priority, where a broad and well-educated next generation is ready to tackle these challenges?  I don’t see it, which is why when I write to the President or my Senators or Representative on feedback of my concerns, I always tick the education box first, because I believe it is a priori to all other challenges.  People don’t just create problems, they solve them, but they can’t solve them if they are not prepared.

This just isn’t fair.  A great education should be the right of every young person growing up, that is where we should happily invest our capital.  We can talk about unmotivated teachers, absentee parents, bureaucracy, unions, administrative costs, budgets, corruption, inefficiency — we can talk about anything we want in terms of why it can’t happen — but when you see that it can happen, your spirits are lifted for those who are getting the gift, and crushed for those who are not.

When I was on campus, here are some basic, simple practices I observed all around me that would not seem impossible to emulate:

1) A school should be safe — you can’t learn if you are worried about getting beat up, shot, killed, sold drugs, bullied, silenced, or repressed.  When you see students who are safe, they teach each other.  It seems so natural, but we know how rare it is.  Free flowing dialogue is really not possible in any climate of fear.

2) Students should be able to admire and respect their teachers — if a teacher is worthy of respect, she or he will command it.  You have to hire right, and the talent has to be fairly compensated, then the teacher has to want to be the subject of admiration and respect, every day.

3) Teachers should be able to admire and respect their students — remembering that they are further along in life and must cut students some slack for their emerging abilities, teachers should feel good about the students they teach, learn from them , listen to them, help them course correct when appropriate, and celebrate with them when there is something to celebrate.  Students have to understand that if they don’t show respect for their teachers, they can’t get it for themselves, it is a two-way street.

4) Administrators should be helpful and supportive — administration is necessary and valuable when performed with insight, but it is a background task for the purpose of letting teachers teach and helping students learn.  There has to be humility in leadership, and it is has to be self policing to ensure that is lean.  If this is accomplished, administrators can then share and celebrate with students and teachers on a level playing field.  I have seen it, and it is quite a party.

5) School is about learning how to think, not about how to make money — this holds for academics, athletics, clubs and the like, we must emphasize foundation, not trade, as young people emerge.  Everyone already knows we all need to work, and a good education can push us further down the path to achieving better earning potential.  But if that is the carrot and the stick, it will not motivate ubiquitously, because self-doubt will overrule hope in too many cases and conditions.  Self-esteem is achievable in modest increments step by step, in small wins that come from building self-confidence — through learning to accept ourselves, the views of others, the unraveling mysteries of science, the expressions of art, and the teamwork that replaces self-satisfaction.  In an environment that makes learning an end and a means, career potential can blossom on its own fuel, through natural interests and abilities that translate over time into workplace commitments.

I am not envisioning a utopian solution, I’ve been around the block enough to understand all the counterarguments and very real hurdles of reality.  I am simply advocating a commitment to focus as a pragmatic approach, among a set of conflicting agendas where it is easily counterintuitive to look at long-term plans for fixes we need now.  Yet there are so many good schools that emphasize so many good values, we have models all around us in every community.  We just don’t have enough, and what we have in good schools is a minority, which is wrong and not fair — we can’t let education become part of a have and have not culture, that does not help anyone on the horizon.  To see the next generation experience the miracle and benefits of great learning is to understand and appreciate human potential and hope.  To accept that it is in limited supply is to let ourselves implicitly endorse a set of conditions that is not only wrong, not only unfair, but entirely detrimental to our future and the perpetual reconstruction of our enterprise.

I salute those who are doing this right, and only hope we can make this mission a national priority.  So much happiness is possible if we just set this level playing field and try to give people the chance to learn.

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What I’d Wish I’d Known

Ten Tips Now for Then
by Ken Goldstein

About a year ago I was asked to give a talk to a group of high school seniors with aspirations to pursue entrepreneurial careers.  I though at length about when I could tell a bunch of young men and women who hadn’t even left home yet, in a voice they might actually hear and not ignore.

The path I picked was a series of tidbits that I wish I had known at their age, that might have made the next thirty years a bit easier to navigate.  My thinking was that if they only remembered one of the ten for even the next few years of their lives, the talk would have been successful.  I invited them to contact me any time and let me know how it was going, and a few have been in touch.

I thought I would d share the summary of the those ten tidbits here, and then over the next few weeks riff on each with a bit of cake under the frosting.  Understand that these have been borrowed and adapted, cut and pasted from friends, writers, bosses, and colleagues over the years, so if you smell poetic theft, you smell correctly.  I promise attribution as best I can in the follow-on entries.  These are not necessarily in order of importance, but emotional resonance at this particular moment in time.

1) The most important career decision we make is who we choose as a life partner.

2) Talent is precious — and rare — revere it!

3) The world is filled with 90 percenters — a.k.a. good enough is not good.

4) Networking is not going to parties — it’s helping as many people as we can as often as we can.

5) Investing is not the same as speculating.

6) A plan is something you have,  until you get hit.

7) Our greatest strength are our greatest weaknesses.

8) The harder you work, the luckier you get.

9) Tell people what you are going to do, then do it.

10) The journey is the reward — it will take longer, cost more, and return less than you think, so you better enjoy it.

Stay tuned for a more detail on each individual theme…