From Jon Peddie:
As I pondered this ponderous title and the challenge it represents for me to lead the round table at COFES it got me thinking about how we learn.

Children learn fast and do so until they become 19 to 20 years old, then their brains start to solidify and learning takes longer, and it’s more difficult. By the time one reaches our age you really have to work at it to learn new things; languages are particularly difficult because of the contextual and grammatical differences, they don’t easily fit our well honed models and views of the world.

Engineering is a language, as is medicine, music, and art. And not everyone is equipped to learn those subjects, someone good in art may do poorly in medicine, although there does seem to be  a natural linkage between engineering and music.

As we grow we learn not just facts but also falsehoods, philosophies, and fears. And those fears, philosophies, and falsehoods prevent us from learning other, usually important, and often enriching things – we are cast into a channel of self imposed ignorance.

Its these falsehoods that are the greatest barrier to children entering the field of engineering. These localized common wisdoms found in school yards, barber shops, and local hangouts inhibit and stifle a child’s potential. They are taught that they can’t do certain things, or that such things are too hard, or not cool. The teachers are presenting their own failures as fact, and sadly embedding tragic fail before you try ideas into subtle young minds.

Some however are so drawn to a vocation or profession that no amount of obstacle, peer pressure, or parental abandonment can dissuade them. I see them as the lucky ones, the ones who have found a passion early in life and managed to pursue it, and probably do well at it. And whereas we can’t ignore these people, they don’t need as much of our attention as the left behinds and passed over. The challenge is plucking the marginalized children out before they get too stuck in self inhibiting ways and can’t be resurrected.

And so with regard to engineering, I think there could be simple tests, tests that are not formed like a test (and certainly not an element of the disastrous No Child Left Behind fiasco.) Rather they should be sensitivity training for teachers, counselors, coaches, and other adults involved with managing, guiding, and teaching children. These tests would be to identify those students who have a natural knack for problem solving, mechanics, and systems. Don’t limit your imagination on that litany for it applies equally to an orthopedic surgeon, and possibly a composer. And whereas the theme of this rambling diatribe is in finding out how to find and encourage the next crop of engineers, it is not constrained to just that narrow field of endeavor.

In the past, in the US, and up until lately in most other countries, especially the countries with centrally controlled economies, aptitude testing was the norm. Children were evaluated at various grades, often as a way of directing them into studies where they would be best suited and make the greatest achievement (and subsequent contribution to society.) That concept has been abandoned in the US as being narrow minded and preventing a child from its self expression. I think that was, and is a mistake. I think it’s especially a mistake in underprivileged schools where the children don’t have a strong home life and learn about the world on the streets from people no better educated than they are.

And one of the excuses for not providing such evaluations and guidance for children is the limitations in staff and of teachers. The teachers are over burdened with class sizes too large, and administrative tasks that eat into their time to check homework or offer any personal guidance. So I have a proposal.

We hear the lament of industry that the US does not have sufficient technical people and therefore we should open up our immigration policy to allow more foreign workers in (H-1B visas.) If the industry would apply some of its resource to augmenting the schools with special information and teaching programs, evaluations of students, and guidance for students that show promise, I think US industry could find all the technical people it needs. The problem with US industry is such a program would take 10 years from first contact in grammar school and US industry wants an instant solution. Therefore, I propose the government grant the opening up of H-1B Visas but with the provision that US industry pay a special tax to a fund for the evaluation, training, and most importantly, guidance of US students (regardless of where they were born.)

I further suggest that our professional societies access the members an additional fee (some do this now as an educational fund) for student evaluation programs that are combined with student guidance programs.

I believe there are hundreds of thousands of potential engineers in grammar, middle and high school right now. In our ever more complex and challenging world, and especially so in the US, we need more engineers and technicians than ever before. We have these bright young flowers, let find creative and imaginative ways of encouraging them before they get lost in the weeds.

For further reading

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/education/edlife/EDSCIENCE.html
http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/Glasser.htm
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=s12132002
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2005/0518visa.pdf