Don't expect "Good Kids" to solve global warming

The author was a staggeringly well=behaved child. He was so well behaved that his teachers were doubtless very frustrated at having to seat him up where he could see the blackboard. until he got glasses. Big brother. on the other hand was a rebellious child. One remembers a famous line from ourn maternal
grandmother, "Raymond,why can't you me a bood boy?" "I don't want to be a good boy". Yours truly was wonderful at learning the conventional wisdom ar rules of grammar and teaching them. Ray, however had the spark of creativity enabling him to synthesize solutions to difficult questions. This skill is next to impossible to teach. On the other hand, the writer remembers one of his first students. At age 20, he had patented a motorcycle ignition system. During my lectures. he sat there soaking it up, never putting pen to paper, then when his colleagues had gotten to their feet to leave, he would ask astonishly perceptive questions. This is what Obama needs a number of, to solve the world's technical problems. 40 years have not suggested how to teach such skills. We are left with a faint hope there will be some perceptive teachers who can nurture such skills and not beat them out of the kid. Planet Earth desperately needs such teachers.