That Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were
battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense
to the young these days: sports glory. But at Dos Pueblos High School
in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type
of "cool" was brewing. A physics teacher with a dream - the first public
high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award -- had rounded
up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical
know-how to work. If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that
first week of their project, they'd have told you it was all about
winning a robotics competition - building the ultimate robot and
prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming
fans at Atlanta's Georgia Dome.
But for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance.
The fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one
based not on rote learning -- on absorbing facts and figures -- but on
active creation. In his mind's eye, he saw an even more robust academy
within Dos Pueblos that would make science, technology, engineering, and
math (STEM) cool again, and he knew he was poised on the edge of
making that dream a reality. All he needed to get the necessary funding
was one flashy win - a triumph that would firmly put his Engineering
Academy at Dos Pueblos on the map. He imagined that one day there would
be a nation filled with such academies, and a new popular veneration
for STEM - a "new cool" - that would return America to its former
innovative glory.
It was a dream shared by Dean Kamen, a modern-day inventing wizard -
often-called "the Edison of his time" - who'd concocted the very same
FIRST Robotics Competition that had lured the kids at Dos Pueblos.
Kamen had created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science
and Technology) nearly twenty years prior. And now, with a participant
alumni base approaching a million strong, he felt that awareness was
about to hit critical mass.
But before the Dos Pueblos D'Penguineers could do their part in bringing
a new cool to America, they'd have to vanquish an intimidating lineup of
"super-teams"- high-school technology goliaths that hailed from
engineering hot spots such as Silicon Valley, Massachusetts' Route 128
technology corridor, and Michigan's auto-design belt. Some of these
teams were so good that winning wasn't just hoped for every year, it was
expected.
In The New Cool, Neal Bascomb manages to make even those who know
little about - or are vaguely suspicious of - technology care
passionately about a team of kids questing after a different kind of
glory. In these kids' heartaches and headaches - and yes, high-five
triumphs -- we glimpse the path not just to a new way of educating our
youth but of honoring the crucial skills a society needs to prosper. A
new cool.
