Does a whole child approach do a better job of embracing the future?
Marshall: Reports are coming out now that focus on the need for students in science, technology, engineering, and math, but unfortunately the focus is on “How can we make sure U.S. kids are as competitive as kids in India, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Singapore?” These concerns are driven by competition. You don’t hear a lot of conversations about what we’re going to do in math and science so that our kids have the tools to advance the human condition. I would submit to you that the primary grounding should be advancing the human condition. When that’s the focus of your scientific, mathematical, and technological work, you’re going to have an economic driver because advancing the human condition takes an enormous amount of creativity, invention, and imagination. What has turned off so many kids—especially girls—to science, engineering, and technology is that we’ve got to be competitive, we’ve got to make money. We had to beat the Russians during the Cold War. Now, we hav
