Teaching Our Children Exploitation is Better than Innovation

The public schools talk about teaching innovation.  Business consultants say they can teach innovation.  There has been a steady drum beat for increased innovation. Here is an article from the Wall Street Journal:  The Economy’s Hidden Problem: We’re Out of Big Ideas by Greg Ip, Dec. 20, 2016 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-economys-hidden-problem-were-out-of-big-ideas-1481042066).  The article says dwindling gains in science, medicine and technology are holding back growth.  We as parents need to coach our children about how innovation actually works:  people who exploit the innovations of other people profit much more that the innovators.

Today's New York Times,  Sunday May 14, 2017, on page ST-9, has an informative article about innovation:  The Hour's Hot Toy Has a Long History by Alex Williams (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/style/fidget-spinners.html).  This article says the fidget spinner is #17 in the list of top 20 toys sold on Amazon.com.  However, the inventor of this toy, Catherine Hettinger, has not made money off of her invention.

We need to tell our children that selling is harder than inventing.  If you cannot sell you invention; if you cannot exploit your innovation, then you leave it to other people to exploit and profit from your innovations.  After Catherine Hettinger's patent on the fidget spinner expired in 2005, then other people started manufacturing and selling her toy.

If your child wants wealth, then your child should learn about selling; about starting businesses; about exploiting the innovations of other people.  Remember Steve Wozniak was the Apple II computer creator, but Steve Jobs was the computer salesman and probably got most of the wealth.

Robert

I have written on this topic before, on my Texas Ascendant blog (http://texasascendant.blogspot.com/)

The Exploitation of Innovation, March 13, 2010:  http://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2010/03/exploitation-of-innovation.html
Exploitation, Not Innovation,  August 5, 2012:  http://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2012/08/exploitation-not-innovation.html

Mathematics is the Doorway to Good Salaries

Not All College Degrees are Worth Having

Above is a chart of the top four salaries for new college graduates in 2017.  Notice they are all math intensive.  I have a friend who studied Anthropology and he drove a bread truck for a living.  Another fellow got a History degree and worked as a roofer.  Many people say a college degree is important, but some college degrees are more valuable.

The University of Texas - Dallas offers a bachelors degree in Actuarial Science from their School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics:  http://catalog.utdallas.edu/now/undergraduate/programs/nsm/actuarial-science.  So it is possible to get a bachelor's in Actuarial Science.  I had thought you needed a master's degree for this field.

The data in this blog was in today's (Saturday May 13, 2017) Wall Street Journal in an article on page B13, "Outlook is Rosier for Class of 2017" by Kelsey Gee. The newspaper had a great graphic, but their website article had a terrible graphic and I had to make an Excel table to post here.  The WSJ had one version of the article here:  https://www.wsj.com/articles/PR-CO-20170509-910657
The WSJ had another version of the article here:  https://www.wsj.com/articles/salaries-soar-for-the-class-of-2017-1494581404

Math instruction is usually mediocre in most public schools, so remember to be involved in teaching your children math.  A plan like this might work for your children: addition in 1st grade, subtraction in 2nd grade, multiplication in 3rd grade, and division in 4th grade.  My youngest is in college, so my memory is a bit hazy, but this plan is close if not precise.  You must drill your children on their math facts because the schools will not do it.

My best wishes for the success of your children.

Robert

Update:  see the article The Quants Run Wall Street Now by Gregory Zuckerman and Bradley Hope, May 21, 2017 Wall Street Journal on line.  Mathematicians are making great money on Wall Street.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-quants-run-wall-street-now-1495389108

The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

I have a VHS video of The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale.  My copy is 18 minutes long and I purchased it after I saw it as part of a professional training event.  I showed it to may daughter when she was young, but it did not make an impression on her then.  I showed it to her again, recently, after she has graduated from college and gotten a few years of work experience.  This time her jaw dropped.  She now saw the truth and value of what Earl Nightingale.

Earl  Nightingale asks why we live like we do.  How is it that most people set the path of their lives.  He makes you stop and think.

The video is now available on YouTube:
Earl Nightingale - The Strangest Secret to Success of All Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhG4_30OjuE

I encourage you to view it and show it to your children if you like it.  It is only 18 minutes long. Youngsters are still receptive in middle-school.  They might understand it better in high school, but few young people are receptive to parental influence in high school.  Then show them the video again after they've worked for a few years.  That is what worked in my family.

 Mr.  Nightingale presented a checklist.  Here it is, in abbreviated form:

1. A goal
2. Attitude
3. Think
4. As you sow, so will you reap.
5. Truth
6. Research and development
7. You become what you think about most of the time.

Mr.  Nightingale mentioned a play, The Secret of Freedom by Archibald MacLeish.  Here is a link to what Mr.  Nightingale felt about that play:  http://www.awaken.com/2013/03/the-secret-of-freedom/

I hope The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale will be a boon to your children.

Your friend and neighbor,
Robert

Ethics, Marcus Aurelius, Harvard and Success

I believe courtesy is the doorway to ethics.  I used Marcus Aurelius to empathize courtesy to my son.  In the opening of his book, the Roman Emperor Aurelius wrote, "Courtesy and serenity of temper I first learnt to know from  my grandfather Versus." (Translation by Maxwell Staniforth, the best of all the translations.)  I pointed out to my son when we studied the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius that this was the emperor of the Roman Empire, a wealthy and powerful man, a general who waged war, and his first thought expressed in his book was about courtesy.  So the next time you hold a door open for someone and say, "after you," you can remember that courtesy was important to one of the most famous of the Roman Emperors.

Some of my Christian friends will undoubtedly wonder why I used anything other than the Bible to teach ethics to my son.  There are many people in this world who are not Christians and we need some common reference points to navigate through the seas of moral challengers we all face.  The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are well known and widely respected.

There are a number of people in Plano who wish their children to be successful in life.  Some Plano parents hope their children get admitted to the major Ivies (Harvard, Princeton and Yale).  Everyone who hopes their child can go to Harvard should give their child the best education possible before their child goes to Harvard, and this includes the best possible moral education.  If you want your child to go to Harvard you might read this book:  Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class by Ross Gregory Douthat.  You can see in this book that Harvard provides a poor undergraduate education.  Harvard is all about connections.  Remember Steve Ballmer became president of Microsoft because he played poker with Bill Gates at Harvard.  I suspect that Harvard provides a fine education in mathematics and the hard sciences and that their weakness is in the liberal arts.

What good is success if it lands you in jail?  There are so many successful people who end up in trouble with the law that Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes has written a book on the topic:  Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal.  I highly recommend a review of the book in the Wall Street Journal:  The Psychopath in the C-Suite by Philip Delves Broughton (Dec. 14, 2016).  Here is a snippet from this book review:

Mr. Soltes tells the story of Computer Associates, a once-mighty software company. In 2004, the SEC charged its chief executive, global head of sales and general counsel with misrepresenting their revenues to meet Wall Street’s earnings estimates. (The CEO, Sanjay Kumar, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.) Their crime was to pre-print the dates on customer contracts in order to book revenue in one quarter even though a sale was actually closed in the next.

It is important for our children to know that breaking accounting or SEC rules can land them in prison.  Hopefully, a good moral education can strengthen our children's resolve to do what is right and avoid the lure of getting ahead by cutting corners.  Avoiding doing wrong has to be instinctive.  One has to avoid even considering cheating.  (I won't get started on cheating in high school.)

Will your children, looking back on a happy and successful life, say like Marcus Aurelius that from their parents or grandparents they first learned courtesy?  They learned a moral life that steered them safely through the storms of life?

Your friend and neighbor,
Robert

PS: If you read and like the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and want another book on Stoicism,
I recommend On Duties by Marcus Tullius Cicero (Author), E. M. Atkins (Editor), M. T. Griffin (Translator).  I found it an amazing book on ethics.  You might hear about the Enchiridion of Epictetus.  I don't care for the the Enchiridion, but I do recommend this exposition on it:  Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior by James B. Stockdale.  Admiral Stockdale won the Medal of Honor and was the Vice-Presidential candidate for Ross Perot's run for the Presidency.  If you are looking for non-Christian literature on ethics, I prefer Confucianism to Stoicism. I wrote a book on Confucianism:  Achieve Lasting Happiness: Timeless Secrets to Transform Your Life.  I believe Confucianism is more positive and encouraging than Stoicism.
Here is an article on the Translations of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (http://robertcanrightsblog.blogspot.com/2016/12/translations-of-meditations-of-marcus.html).  There are a number of translations available

Sheridan Baker's Keyhole Diagram for Essays

Sheridan Baker's book, The Practical Stylist, has a keyhole diagram describing a design pattern for essays. I saw this diagram when I was a young man in college and the diagram stayed with me forever.

I made this sketch from memory (click on the  image for a larger version).  You can see the original in The Practical Stylist.  Dr. Baker credited Mrs. Fran Measley of Santa Barbara for creating the diagram.  Here is another blog post about the diagram:  http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2012/06/sheridan-bakers-keyhole-structure-for.html
The diagram as made an impression on many people.

I read a very long essay, an entire newspaper page, that impressed me as well written. I went back through the essay, comparing it to the diagram, and I found the article did indeed follow the pattern.  Your children might benefit from this diagram.  As a visual aid it does make an impression.

Your friend and neighbor,
Robert

I last mentioned The Practical Stylist by Sheridan Baker in a post-script to my article, Grammar for Your Child  April 3, 2015.  I just realized I have not written a full article about this book.  I'll do that some time.
If you are curious about Dr. Baker, here is his obituary:  http://ur.umich.edu/9900/Jul17_00/17.htm
I recommend his book The Practical Stylist, but if you become curious about another of his books called The Complete Stylist, I recommend you avoid this second book. It is a theoretical book, not a practical book.  Here is a review of The Complete Stylist:  https://muse.jhu.edu/article/459439

Helping Your Child with Writing and Grammar

I think it is harder to teach your child to be a good writer than to teach your child to be good in math.  Mathematics is more orderly, more logical, more objective and systematic.  It might seem as though writing would be easier because you can just write down what you say.  But our conversational speech is short and interactive.  It is fleeting so your grammatical or logical mistakes are easily overlooked and forgotten.  We give little thought to what we say in conversation because these words are transient.

However, when you commit extended thoughts down onto writing you might then find yourself in the unfamiliar position of searching for the right words to turn your feelings into coherent, logical thoughts.  You might find yourself wondering about punctuation:  does a comma go here?

Your child will experience this puzzlement and you cannot count on the public schools teach your child to be a competent writer.  Even if your child has a competent English teacher (a big if), and even if the English program at your child's school is a good program that is consistently followed (another big if), then you must understand that a teacher has too many students to provide personal attention to each student's writing.  In high school, e.g., your child will most likely see a letter grade on his paper, but no corrections.  Then the paper will be collected back by the teacher so your child cannot take it to you to ask for help in improving his writing.  If you rely entirely on the public school to teach your child to write, then you are rolling the dice with your child's future.

You can help your child with writing.  First, I suggest strongly that you use the SAT and ACT Grammar Workbook by George Ehrenhaft.  I used this book, the 2nd edition, with my son and I can say it did raise scores on the grammar part of my son's SAT and ACT tests.  However, you do not want to use this book too early.  Your child should complete this workbook a week or two before the test.  With too many weeks between the completion of the work book and taking the test, the knowledge will slip away. That is my experience.  This is a study aid for the test. It cannot actually replace the years of second rate grammar instruction in the schools.  It is an aid to get past the test and is most effective when completed near the test date.  I gave a link to the 2nd edition, because we used that edition so I know it. This old edition can be purchased cheaply because there is a new edition.  At this time the latest edition is the 4th edition.  Your child might not get into the school of his choice if the English portion of the SAT/ACT tests has inadequate scores.

For many reasons, middle school is when you need to focus on your child's writing instruction.  Writing sentences and paragraphs is for elementary school.  Writing paragraphs and essays is for middle school.  There are some free, online aids you can use to help your child.  One is the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).   I think the best part of this resource is its OWL YouTube channel, organized into playlists.  The videos are short and useful. Kahn Academy also has video material on grammar.  You have to make sure in high school that your child is ready for college and the SAT/ACT exams, but your over-all efforts will be more fruitful in elementary and middle school.

For your convenience, here are earlier blog  posts related to writing.
Vocabulary in the Plano ISD  July 26, 2014
Grammar for Your Child  April 3, 2015
Coaching Writing with Strunk and White  May 21, 2016

I wish you well in your efforts to provide your children with a good education.  Plano schools are good, but not perfect.  By helping each other we make Plano a great place to live and rear our children.

Your friend and neighbor,
Robert

Smoking Pot Can Make Kids Lazy

Does smoking marijuana make kids lazy?  Scientific evidence says, "yes."  Marijuana Makes for Slackers? Now There’s Evidence by Susan Pinker says,

"... marijuana’s two psychoactive ingredients, tetrohydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), have contrasting effects on the brain. “THC makes you feel high,” said Catharine Winstanley, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia who does research on marijuana, while CBD “is responsible for its analgesic, antiseizure and purported anticancer effects.” 

The results? “Whether they were workers or slackers to begin with,” Dr. Winstanley reported, “even small amounts of THC made them all slackers.”

“Thinking that it’s harmless, that you can smoke cannabis and you’ll be fine, is a false assumption,” said Michael Bloomfield, a University College London professor in psychiatry and one of the UCL study’s authors. “THC alters how willing you are to try things that are more difficult.”

Our children need to know that while 25 states and the District of Columbia have legalized pot for various purposes, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers marijuana as illegal as heroin.  Companies with good jobs and high pay sometimes do drug testing, both in the hiring process and in the work place, doing random drug tests.  I have been drug tested, so this is personal testimony.  Smoking pot can cost your child a good job. On more that one occasion I have had to submit to lie detector tests and I was asked about drug use in these tests.  Even if your children wait to get the drugs out of their system, they might still be tripped up by a lie detector test.  There is an economic incentive in addition to a health incentive to avoid marijuana.

This article appeared in the printed edition on Saturday Sept. 17, 2016, page C2.  This should be available in your public library if you have trouble reading the article online.  Susan Pinker has a column called Mind & Matter in the Wall Street Journal.

We cannot assume our children will absorb our values because they are in our home.  We ought to explicitly state and promote our values to our children, in my opinion.  We need to speak against drug use to protect our children from harm.

Wishing the best for you and your family,
Robert