barrow-dot-me

This morning, my wife and I had the displeasure of hearing a school administrator show some disrespect for Science. I admit that we are pretty biased towards STEM: I majored in Computer Science and my wife majored in biochemistry and teaches Physics. But, even in consideration of this, I was alarmed by this person's comment that Science could take somewhat of a back seat to Mathematics and English at the elementary school level. In my opinion, English language skills are vitally important. If you don't understand language, it makes it pretty darn difficult to communicate. And, in today's world, it pays to know a good bit of Math. At the same time, Science is quite complementary to both of these subjects and brings along a few good tidbits of its own. Science is a perfect application of mathematics and language skills because doing it properly requires one to weave together both domains. One needs to use math to analyze the data and present it (e.g., charts and graphs) a...

My wife just told me today that our local library branch would no longer be open on Saturdays. I almost shed a tear. Not only does my daughter love going their for Story Hour after her class at Little Gym, but because I remember the great many hours I spent at the library on Saturdays when I was a kid. Back in NYC, my family didn't have a lot of money, so I found the library an excellent source of entertainment. Heck, you couldn't beat the price! I feel a little sad for today's kids that are like I was: low on cash, but high on desire to learn more about the world. Someday -- soon I hope -- we will learn to make education a priority. Hopefully before we really get our clocks cleaned...