The Two Million Minutes Blog

National Spelling Bee Winner from Indiana

Sameer Mishra, 1st place
      Age 13, 8th grade
      School: West Lafayette Junior/Senior High School
      Hometown: West Lafayette, Indiana

About Sameer

Sameer loves to read and is part of his school's book club. He enjoys playing computer and video games, as well as board games. Sameer has played the violin for four years in his school orchestra. His favorite subjects are science and math.

He also likes to ride his bike and hang out with his friends.  Sameer is a competitive student; he participates in contests such as Spell Bowl, Academic Super Bowl and Indiana State School Music Association.

Sameer aspires to a career as a neurosurgeon.

This is Sameer’s fourth year in the competition, having previously tied for 98th, 14th and 16th places (2005, 2006, 2007).

I'm so happy for Sameer and grateful that the United States allowed his parents to become US citizens so Indiana could benefit from his many intellectual talents.

The others in the top 10:

2- Sidharth  Chand
3- Tia Thomas
4- Samia Nawaz
5- Scott Remer
6- Kavya Shivashankar
7- Rose Sloan
8- Catherine "Cat" Cojocaru
9- Jahnavi  Iyer
10- Kyle Mou

Governor Daniels Raises the Recognition of Academic Achievement in Indiana

From the Indianapolis Star 5/30/08

ZCHS valedictorian earns state's 1st Mr. Math award

By Robert Annis
[email protected]  

Just call him Mr. Math.

Zionsville High School senior Sam Dittmer earned another feather in his cap Tuesday morning when Gov. Mitch Daniels surprised this year's valedictorian with the first Indiana Mr. Math award.

Daniels also presented a Miss Science award to Terre Haute South Vigo High School senior Swara Kopparty.

Daniels said a conversation with a friend [Bob Compton] prompted him to create the awards.

"He asked how is it we know the names of all the Mr. Basketballs, but we don't have a Mr. Math or a Mr. Science," Daniels said. "It was a good idea, so we acted on it promptly."

The awards were developed with input from the Indiana Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (I-STEM) Network, the Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, (HASTI), the Indiana Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) and the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, according to a release from the governor's office.

Daniels said he hoped young Hoosiers would aspire to be Mr. Math or Miss Science as much as Mr. Basketball, noting academic achievement is very important.

Nearly 200 students applied to be the first Mr. Math, but Dittmer has the credentials to back up the title. Among his many accomplishments at ZCHS, Dittmer earned several math awards, including first place at an IUPUI math competition last year and a national first place in an individual round of the American Regions Math League in 2006. A three-time qualifier for the USA Math Olympiad, he recently placed 25th in another nationwide math test.

Dittmer's parents, Phil and Janet Dittmer, were among a few who knew about Daniels' visit in advance. While proud of his accomplishments, they praised their son's desire to make the world a better place. "People like solving problems," Janet Dittmer said. "He's good at it. But he wants to use those skills and talents to help others. He wants to do good in the world." In addition to the award, Dittmer also received a $2,000 scholarship from McGraw Hill representative Mike Houston. Dittmer will attend Brigham Young University in the fall on a full-ride scholarship.

READ MORE ON THE WINNER SAM DITTMER

READ MORE ON THE WINNER SWARA KOPPARTY

Erin Burnett and the Value of First Hand Knowledge

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Erin Burnett on CNBC. What was refreshing about her was she had just returned from India and so she had seen up close the amazing transformation taking place. It was a short, powerful interview and can be viewed HERE.

Yes...Senator Obama has seen Two Million Minutes

Senator Obama gave the Commencement Address at Wesleyan University and made a few points about education in 21st century America:

"At a time when a child in Boston must compete with children in Beijing and Bangalore, we need an army of you to become teachers and principals in schools that this nation cannot afford to give up on. I will pay our educators what they deserve, and give them more support, but I will also ask more of them to be mentors to other teachers, and serve in high-need schools and high-need subject areas like math and science."

"Transforming our education system will require not only bold government action, but a change in attitudes among parents and students."

Family Film Night with Two Million Minutes

From the Blog - Dad's Center

"Friday night we had family movie night.  The film of the week?  2 Million Minutes All six of the older children were required to join us in the family room for this important message.  Did they all comprehend?  Not willingly.  A couple of the kids kept telling us the movie doesn't apply to them.  Hm.

Afterwards, actually, for 2.5 hours, we sat there watching the movie and then talking about it, the future, and what course our kids needed to take into the future to be competitive with their counterparts from around the world."

"And so my hope is to continue the intrigue of 2 Million Minutes and use that to encourage our kids to do better.  Are we going to hang our hat only on that movie?  No, but it does serve as an inspiration."

White Station High School Uses 2MM As a Teachable Moment

I was impressed to see over 50 students from White Station High School, one of the best Memphis City schools, at a recent screening of Two Million Minutes.

I was even more impressed that their teachers used the film and the criticism of the film by Washington Post reporter Jay Matthews as an opportunity for students to think about how their education compares to what they saw in the film.

The questions posed by the White Station teachers were:

1- Summarize Compton's argument for what is wrong with American schools when compared to schools in India and China.

2- What was the nature of the evidence he provided? Is it convincing?

3- Is there other evidence he could have provided? Is the evidence he provided balanced? If so or not, what questions are still apparent to you?

4- What criticisms does Jay Matthews have of Compton's argument and film?

5- What sort of evidence does Matthews provide in support of his argument?

6- What questions does he raise that are unanswered in the film?

7- What is your assessment of the education you are receiving, the preparation you are getting - as well as or in comparison to that of your peers? Would an IB program answer some of Compton's questions? What do YOU think about the state of American education? On what are you basing your opinion?

Here are how ten of the White Station students answered those questions.
Download white_station_students_analyze_2mm.pdf

If you have seen Two Million Minutes, how would you answer these questions?

My Teach For America Experience

Recently I had the opportunity to teach a 9th grade class at East High School in Memphis. East is an all African American urban school which used to be one of the best schools in the city but which has declined over the past 5-7 years, not in facilities but in results .

The teacher I assisted is Timothy Pruitt, a recent college graduate and a Teach For America corps members. I became a contributor to Teach For America recently because of what I learned about the program from 2MM Director Chad Heeter and 2MM Producer Adam Rainey - both of whom had been TFA corps members.

In the media and among educators I have heard mixed views - some applaud the efforts, others deem it too shallow an experience to do much good for students. Naturally, I decided to go see for myself.

As the pedagogues at Harvard Graduate School of Education like to remind me - I'm not an educator. So, I only report what I see.

Here is what I saw: a classroom of alert and interested students, a teacher who is clearly liked and respected, walls covered with student work, a sense of pride and possibility among the students and gratitude for me taking the time to come and speak with them. Oh, and rising test scores on standardized tests.

I spoke for an hour on three subjects: 1) why starting and owning a business is a great career option, 2) the challenges black business people face in Memphis, and 3) using personal budgeting as a way to practice skills for business ownership. View my PowerPoint.Download east_high_presentation.pdf

African Americans are disproportionately underrepresented as business owners in America. Whereas, blacks comprise 11% of our population, they own only about 5% of the businesses. In Memphis, African Americans are 60% of the population, yet only 1.5% of the revenues generated come from black-owned businesses. But that topic is the subject of my next documentary.

As for Teach For America, on just a few data points, my conclusion is it is tremendously positive program - positive for the students, for the schools where they teach and for the corps members. If you haven't contributed to TFA, you should. And if you criticize the program without experiencing it yourself, then just be quiet.

6 Out Of 10 Americans Cannot Locate Payless Shoes On A Mall Map

From The Onion: America's Finest News Source

WASHINGTON—An alarming new study conducted by the Department of Education has found that 60 percent of all Americans are unable to locate the major retail outlet Payless Shoes when presented with an ordinary shopping-center map.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who personally monitored the study, said that the United States ranked behind 130 other nations when it came to mall-map comprehension—an embarrassment considering one-third of the countries surveyed didn't even have shopping centers.

"The drop, Spellings said, is especially evident in the sciences, with countless men and women lacking the rudimentary math skills needed to follow an episode of Deal Or No Deal."

"Our nation is every bit as educated and well informed today as it was 20 years ago," Michigan resident Dale Henderson said. "If anything, we know more football and hockey trivia now than ever before."

Read the full report.

When parody imitates life...we are in trouble.

Clueless in America

Bob Herbert had an excellent Op/Ed essay in the April 22, 2008, New York Times called Clueless In America.

A few of the key points included:

"We don't hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It's much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball."

"An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day."

"Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900."

"When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong."

"While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that."

Screening at Stanford

We had a great screening at Stanford Business School on May 14th. The most interesting aspect was during the Q & A. One of the Indian students completing his MBA asked some very good questions about the cultural differences between our countries.

I then asked him if he was worried about getting an H1B visa after he finished his MBA. His replied startled me, "I'm not applying for an H1B visa, because I'm returning to India as soon as I graduate from Stanford. That is where I see the best opportunities."

To hear a Stanford MBA candidate with an engineering undergraduate degree say he saw more opportunity in India than in Silicon Valley was just an amazing statement.