Scientific Parks

Spark curiosity in young minds with NextDNA's Science Park - innovative STEM programs.

#STEM #stemforkids #scienceparks #stemparks #scientificparks

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

Guess the name of this brilliant mathematician. ✍️

[Arjun Khemani @arjunkhemani]

The Wright brothers were really cool.

They often engaged in heated debates, and after lengthy discussions, they'd still disagree, but each would have switched to the other's initial viewpoint!

[Sam Altman @sama]

sure 10x engineers are cool but damn those 10,000x engineer/researchers...

[Sam Altman @sama]

someone should write a book called 'the areas where you have to do the opposite of conventional management wisdom'

[Z Fellows @zfellows]

so much about being a successful entrepreneur is just not giving up

[Scientific Parks @nextdnachildren]

@PhysInHistory now relate it to ai technologists....

[Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD @malpani]

#Homeschooling parents provide a far better learning environment at a fraction of the cost! The money they save on fees helps them give their kids a comfortable financial cushion when exploring the future!
https://t.co/z8uLVNwFUf

[Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD @malpani]

Making computer-based learning available and accessible across India at https://t.co/ovy3Ne1ieG

[Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD @malpani]

My Education Manifesto

People sometimes ask me what I have against commercial coaching classes. Is it that I have a grudge against Byju's and that this is my way of retaliating against them?
The truth is very different.
It bothers me when I see adult patients coming to me for IVF treatment who are so clueless about the treatment. They are passive and reluctant to ask the doctor questions. They are not able to think critically; they're not able to evaluate what a doctor tells them; they're not able to make sense of the information about IVF on many websites, much of which is completely false, because clinic websites will exaggerate their success rates to attract patients!
As a result of this passivity, many IVF doctors take patients for a ride even though these are "educated” intelligent patients with degrees. This bothers me because bad doctors end up giving the entire medical profession a bad reputation because patients don't think critically they allow these bad doctors to get away with cheating them. And then I stopped to ask myself, why is it that these adults aren't able to think for themselves? Why aren't they able to do research for themselves? And it all boils down to the fact that the education system has taught them to be spoon-fed as a result of which they don't learn to ask questions or dig down to find the truth. They passively accept what anyone tells them, whether that person is a tuition teacher or a doctor, because these are all authority figures who are seen to be experts. But this is not a healthy trend at all!
Those patients who end up in the hands of a good doctor will be fine. But what happens to all the patients who end up in the hands of a bad doctor? And there are many more bad doctors than there are good doctors! And this is true for all professionals, not just doctors! It's true for lawyers, CAs, architects, and engineers. The only way to solve this problem is by making sure that when they are students, they're able to start learning for themselves so that they can ask intelligent questions when they grow up, they can differentiate between a good professional and a bad one, and don't get carried away by degrees and jargon!
We have been trying to educate IVF patients for many years, but this is an uphill exercise because most patients get paralyzed when they're presented with information. They are not sophisticated enough to make sense of medical articles. They aren't able to differentiate between a good website and a bad website—a doctor who's telling them the truth or a doctor who's lying to them.
When I did a root cause analysis, I realized that this is because our education system makes students very dependent on an authority figure—the teacher—because the only focus of our education system seems to be on scoring more marks. This is an extremely unhealthy trend, not just for the individuals themselves but even for the country as a whole, because our people are our human capital, but if they're not able to think for themselves, they're not going to be able to create jobs for themselves. They will continue complaining about the sad state of affairs and not be able to improve them because they think of themselves as helpless pawns. They will not demand accountability from the professionals they go to or from the politicians they elect, and India will continue going downhill, and that bothers me a lot because we have so much human potential in our youth; all we can do is educate them.
Also, I don't just want to criticise tuition classes, schools, parents, exams,or the education system because this does not help. I am far more constructive - I want to create a better alternative. And this is exactly what we're doing at https://t.co/r3AREIFYi1 and https://t.co/rhMXjqq4K0. We can't afford to leave everything up to the government because we know that it's extremely difficult for teachers to teach well at these schools, which are often underequipped. underequipped. Teachers are often absent because they are not accountable, because there is very little supervision, and because they have a cushy job for life because they keep their boss happy. It's very hard for parents to find good schools that are that affordable and extremely expensive, which makes the divide between the rich and the poor even worse.
The rich may be able to buy a high-quality education, but what happens to the average student? This is something that bothers me a lot. I was lucky and happened to win the ovarian lottery , but what can we do to provide opportunities to the millions of other kids who are equally talented? My kids were fortunate because they were born with a silver spoon, but that's not good enough! We can’t afford to be selfish and only look out for ourselves - we have a responsibility to society as well.
And at some point, you could say I'm doing this for selfish reasons, because I'm going to get older, and then I'm going to need a good doctor who's going to look after me. And then I don't want to be forced to go to a doctor who got into medical college just because they crammed a lot and therefore scored a lot of marks in the exam. I want doctors who can think for themselves, who can do research, who can come up with a treatment plan that is right for me, and who will not just do what their boss tells them to do because they're so used to listening to their seniors.
The problem with commercial coaching classes is that they treat education as a money-making business, and this just makes a bad situation worse because they exploit students. Since both the sarkar (government) and the bazaar (market) have failed, we need the samaj (society) to step in—we need a community-based model because education is a public good. And the great news is that thanks to technology, it's now very easy to do this. This is exactly what we're doing with our ApniPathshala model, which we will open-source so others can replicate it. We are providing kids with a safe learning space, with adult supervision, so that along with their friends and armed with a PC that gives them access to the world's best teachers, all of whom teach online, they'll be able to start thinking for themselves and learning for themselves, so that when they become adults, they will be proud global citizens because they're prepared for a life of success rather than having to depend on adults and being told what to do—whether that's a politician, a bureaucrat, or a boss—exploit because they're going to be able to stand on their own two feet.

[Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD @malpani]

If we don't protect our students from the stress induced by the mad scramble for exam marks, then who will ? By making them compete with millions of others for a handful of college seats and jobs , we are actually ruining their future

[Hannah Frankman Hood @HannahFrankman]

Your kids become what they consume; not just with physical nourishment, but with pop culture and ideas.

Expose them wisely.

[Hannah Frankman Hood @HannahFrankman]

Every fascinating person I know has weird and quirky interests.

Nurture your own, and nurture those of your kids.

[Scientific Parks @nextdnachildren]

@malpani self-learning/self-discovery matters a lot....After-school tuitions pose a threat to students by restricting their freedom to enjoy their time, more so than schools do.

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.

-- Carl Sagan

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

But every error is due to extraneous factors (such as emotion and education); reason itself does not err.

-- Kurt Gödel

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

Children are not afraid to pose basic questions that may embarrass us, as adults, to ask.

-- Dr. Roger Penrose

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

Alexandre Grothendieck was very different from Weil in the way he approached mathematics: Grothendieck was not just a mathematician who could understand the discipline and prove important results—he was a man who could create mathematics. And he did it alone.

-- Amir D. Aczel

[Scientific Parks @nextdnachildren]

@PhysInHistory fallibilism?

[Scientific Parks @nextdnachildren]

@HannahFrankman @malpani

[Scientific Parks @nextdnachildren]

@balajis humans are poor at understanding but good at actions