Fixing Education
It is heartening to learn that Stanford is making a serious effort to help our failing K-12 schools ("What It Will Take to Improve K-12 Schools," President's Column, November/December). I fear, however, that dealing with school problems will also require fundamental societal changes. Too many adhere to the old adage "If you can, do; if you can't, teach." It is not merely a problem of inadequate pay for teachers, but a lack of respect for the profession. Utah, where I retired after 36 years on the Duke faculty, ranks 50th in state spending per student, and teachers are widely viewed as an excessive burden on taxpayers. I suspect that the situation is not much better in most states.
We have a lot to learn from Finland in this respect. Only the top 10 percent of applicants for the required master's program in education are accepted. Teachers have the same status as doctors and lawyers. My cousin, a retired high school teacher, was viewed as a community leader by virtue of her position. Finnish students routinely score near or at the top of the PISA tests given to 15-year-old students in many countries, and 93 percent of them graduate high school. It is a myth that these achievements are the result of a homogeneous society. Students in the 4 percent immigrant population perform equally well because they are provided with special assistance, including [help] with the very difficult Finnish language.
Ole R. Holsti, '54, PhD '62
Salt Lake City, Utah
President Hennessy emphasizes that education is not only a Stanford priority but a national imperative as well. However, in addition to the action he describes Stanford taking to achieve improvement, I would like to suggest how reforming high school and college football could play a significant role in fulfilling this urgent need. The most immediate reform I have in mind, which could be in place within a year and would not be very expensive to implement, is to extend the length of our high school and college football fields from 100 yards to 100 meters, an increase of 9.36 yards. This will accomplish three goals. First, it will bring the measure of the distance a football player travels into agreement with that used by students on the track and swimming teams, who measure distance traveled in meters. Why should one group of students measure distance in one system of units, while another group uses another system? Second, the 100-meter football field will provide a helpful means of visualization in teaching science: The speed of light is very nearly 3 million (metric) football fields per second; the astronomical unit (A.U.), the average distance of the earth to the sun, is almost exactly 1.5 billion (metric) football fields; and the radius of the earth is approximately 64,000 (metric) football fields. I once mentioned this to a Dutch exchange student, and she replied, "That's the way we learned it in Holland." The Netherlands places well above the United States in international science and math exams for youngsters. Third, the conversion of the football fields from 100 yards to 100 meters will help to wake up the American people, and hopefully Congress as well, to the disturbing fact that the United States is one of the very few remaining nations that is not on the metric system. Great institutions such as Stanford could play an important role in sounding the needed wake-up call by increasing the length of their football fields.
Frank R. Tangherlini, PhD '59
San Diego, California
I agree with the President [on] improving K-12 schools. In the late 1960s and early 1970s while I was a student at Stanford, and after, I was involved in a plan to develop new science and mathematics. It solved all the problems at the time, but states (except for Massachusetts) removed it from their curricula because parents were threatened by their kids learning critical thinking! Waldorf Schools do use some of these techniques as well as [developmental psychologist Jean] Piaget's understanding of mental growth. We need the development of mind/body/spirit in education so that the people of the future can contribute positively to their own and others' lives.
Richard L. Kimball, '61, MS '70, PhD '71
Franklin, North Carolina
Staggering Traffic
Perhaps Professor Prabhakar might want to explore another approach to ease traffic congestion ("A Game Plan to Beat Back Rush-Hour Traffic," Farm Report, November/December).
Many years ago I worked for a large organization with a parking lot [entering onto] a major roadway leading to a nearby freeway. Morning rush hour traffic jammed this roadway badly, and closing time created massive bumper-to-bumper, slowly moving traffic. The fire marshal used to laughingly relate the fact that during fire drills it took about 10 minutes to clear the many buildings, but at closing hour the buildings were clear in about five minutes, as people rushed to their cars to be first on the access road.
The organization consisted of two major sub-units, each with about half the total employees. So I made a recommendation that if one of the two sub-units could start work 15 minutes before the other and close 15 minutes earlier it might relieve some of the pressure on the jammed roadway. The proposal was adopted with significant success.
It would seem possible that large cities could easily determine which businesses have the most employees and alter their business hours so that all or some of their employees could arrive and leave work a few minutes earlier or later. For example, in San Francisco, the large population of financial organization employees who work in back rooms and have no public contact could split working hours to relieve this city's daily gridlock, mostly on the two main bridges across the Bay, and the humongous traffic problems down the Peninsula.
You will note that this suggestion doesn't need funding for prizes to individuals, the numbers of whom are not significant in the long run.
Abner D. Kuperstein
San Francisco, California
GM's Mistakes
I'm glad to see an alum in a position to bring new life to GM, but it doesn't take a Stanford grad to see the company is still making many of the same mistakes that led to its crisis of a couple of years ago ("What Drives Mary Barra," September/October). One of the cars pictured in Jim Tankersley's piece is the subcompact Sonic, which will "compete in emerging markets." GM must be delusional to think such a vehicle can compete with the Honda Fit, the new Fiat or the Nissan Juke, for one simple reason: The Sonic is ugly. Small needs to be cute, to begin with, so unless the Sonic has something up its sleeve that makes it far superior to the other cars I mentioned (and there are more), there is no way sales will justify production costs. The company and its shareholders are looking at another failed effort in a short few years.
GM seems to be perverse in its ignorance of building on what has worked for it and trying to persevere in what has not. Perhaps its most successful car is the Corvette, so if it wants to make a great subcompact, why not make a mini-Corvette? Who wouldn't take a second look at that? GM's Colorado, a small, aged, uncompetitive pickup, could be made better by borrowing from its more successful, larger pickups; just shrink it. Building on past successes is what makes auto companies solid. BMW's main line is really one car that they make in different sizes—1, 3, 5 and 7—and give each one special modifications to make it effective, functional, attractive and special in its own skin. GM will argue that it is targeting a non-European type temperament with a thinner wallet, but as Warren Buffet pointed out in a 60 Minutes interview some time back, American companies (he was referring to Chrysler) should just worry about building a better car.
GM continues to sell its products by appealing to a certain buyer rather than emphasizing the strength of its product, and the underlying (though obvious) message is a kind of "I'm better than you." GM needs to see that the days of apple pie and the red, white and blue are over, at least these days when people are cautious about spending money on a new car. Cadillac has the right idea, but the Chevy end of the company is so preoccupied with trying to read its buyers' minds and anticipate their desires it is underestimating Americans' assessment prowess. Its marketing strategy is insulting—unless its goal is not to sell cars.
Michael Opolicky, MA '89
Lancaster, Texas
One for the Armchair
Your September/October article, "Putting Philosophy to the Test," brought to mind Einstein's assertion: "Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." Einstein's insight here is worthy of some armchair reflection.
Warren Seering, PhD '79
Sherborn, Massachusetts
Disturbing Lessons
The group of researchers from Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation claimed to have received first-hand enlightenment about the destructive power of nuclear weapons in their visit to the Nevada Test Site ("The Bomb Project," Farm Report, September/October). It "was important to help fellows get out of the library, so they could 'get a more perceptible sense' of the power of nuclear weapons," one said. After observing the huge crater left by a bomb test, another said, "It really gives you a feel of what the weapons are like."
I would think that a much shorter and more comprehensive course regarding nuclear bomb instruction and destruction would be for that group to simply look at pictures of the 15-kiloton flattening of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [20-kiloton] and those of H-bomb megaton tests at Enewetak in the '50s. Or, they could thumb through the Department of Defense's "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" (1962). If these are not enough to elicit full comprehension about the matter as well as satisfaction of the "epistemology" goals of those researchers, they might relate more to the fact that that enormous and instructive crater in the desert was produced by a 104-kiloton bomb, and that 500-kiloton nuclear warheads are now a standard in the repertoire of deployed (and targeted?) weapons. If the New START treaty holds, then in seven more years we and Russia will each be down to 1,500 or so of the likes of these weapons. Hurrah! And by the way, that 500-kiloton "device" is shorter than you, and your arms could easily go around it.
Those CISAC pre- and postdoctoral fellows might want to spend time on a related site: Nuclearrisk.org.
Stan G. Scott, '51
Menlo Park, California
The article was a bit disturbing to a non-expert like me. I agree that the photo and description of the crater from the 104-kiloton nuclear explosion are astonishing. So, given that, I wonder why we need to study the challenges faced by weapons designers in transferring knowledge of nuclear weapons to future generations. Would design knowledge on the hundreds of nine-megaton B53 thermonuclear bombs manufactured during the Cold War era be part of the study? I hope not. Those bombs served their purpose and the only thing needed now is to make sure that they are all safely dismantled.
Frank Muratore, MS '63
Merced, California
Correction
In the Gaieties article ("The Show Goes On," November/December), the year that Ronee Blakley, '67, participated was given incorrectly as 1965. It was 1966. Thanks to Sara ("Sally") Shatford Layne, '68, MFA '72, for noticing this.
The following letters did not appear in the print edition of Stanford.
Freshmen by the Numbers
It appears that the most underrepresented group in the freshman class of 2015 is white applicants, with 30.6 percent of the incoming class identifying as non-Hispanic white vs. 63.7 percent of the U.S. population (2010 census) (News Briefs, November/December). What can white applicants do in partnership with Stanford to bring their representation up to levels found in U.S. society?
David Baszucki, ’85
Portola Valley, California
Prison Training Observations
As a Navy pilot during the Vietnam conflict I attended three different survival courses (“Prison Perspectives,” Letters, November/December). Two of them had very little to do with prison camp training. I mention them simply because during the first one, which took place during preflight training, at Eglin AFB, I was amazed at the differences in participants’ training. We were required to find our own food, as best we could, in an area of flat Florida pine forest with a small stream and a pond nearby. The stream was known as good habitat for water moccasins. We generally ended up with three types of participants: those who absolutely avoided the stream; those (myself included) who ventured somewhat to safely harvest the riches of the pond and forest and hopefully more; and those who ran down the stream, hollering and grabbing and twirling the water moccasins they caught.
The primary prison camp training (at least for the West Coast Navy aviation community) was in the Cleveland National Forest. The class was a mix of officer and enlisted personnel, from both tactical and support aviation. After several days of training on what to eat and how to avoid bad guys, we were gathered up and put in a “prison camp.”
The camp experience wasn’t fun. (I know of one individual who sustained a broken eardrum from a rifle butt.) But we all knew it would be over at a specific time. Given that, I have to say that I was very much surprised and appalled at the number of folks who easily gave up.
The final training event found us all put in small adjoining plywood boxes in a large room. I eventually figured out that I could burst through my “door” panel and out of my box. And I did so, probably around 2 in the morning. I freed about 20 “inmates” after doing so, but they seemed uninvolved and we were all escorted back to our boxes for the night. I wasn’t recognized as the culprit.
I have little confidence that those who broke down learned anything of value from this experience, quite contrary to Peter Pansing’s comments.
Tom Remus, ’64
Alameda, California
'Tabloid Stuff'
The sex ad on page 18 (November/December) is for the tabloid stuff at the checkout of a grocery. The Zombie article and picture (“Zombies on the Brain,” November/December) fall into the same category. Keep the magazine above that sort of garbage.
Peter Frusetta, ’54
Tres Pinos, California
Hazing
I wonder how many readers note the irony in the article “Nowadays We’d Call It Waterboarding” (Farm Report, November/December) appearing in the same issue as [the advertisement] that uses the photograph of Condoleezza Rice to promote attendance for a conclave in Mumbai, India.
As secretary of state she repeatedly stated that the United States does not torture; it was later documented that she sat around the table in the White House with Bush and Cheney when they endorsed waterboarding as acceptable, using the euphemism “enhanced interrogation.”
In 1916, incoming Stanford president Ray Lyman Wilbur spoke out strongly against this form of hazing, calling it “a combination of cowardice and bullying.” This adds to my puzzlement as to how our great University could welcome Rice back to the teaching staff with open arms. Will we next read of tubbing as an acceptable form of hazing freshman students in her classroom if we call it enhanced welcoming?
Barney T. Scott, MA ’63
Spring Valley, California
