John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent our own backyard.
— Thomas Friedman
There's no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student's achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here's what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children's education can also make a huge difference in a student's achievement.
Being really good at 'learning how to learn,' as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.
Lord knows there's a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, and that is the budding revolution in global online higher education.
The merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution means new products are being phased in and out so fast that companies cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to figure out whether a team leader is doing a good job.
We need a proper balance between government spending on nursing homes and nursery schools - on the last six months of life and the first six months of life.
There's nothing like living a little close to the edge that gets you motivated to ensure that you get the credentials you need to succeed.
Al Qaeda is nothing more than a mutant supply chain. They're playing off the same platform as Wal-Mart and Dell. They're just not restrained by it. What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain.
When it comes to dealing with the world's climate and energy challenges, I have a simple rule: change America, change the world.
Google attracts so much talent, it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers.
My mom enlisted in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and my parents actually bought our home thanks to the loan she got through the GI Bill.
I'm from Minnesota. I'm optimistic. I mean, that's just who I am.
Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.
Do you know what my favorite renewable fuel is? An ecosystem for innovation.
A golf course should aspire to generate as much energy as it consumes - golf should be leading the way toward energy net zero.
I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it.
What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain.
America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society - in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage.
The more Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the more the world focuses on Israel's colonialism rather than Iran's nuclear enrichment, the more people call for a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine.
Many authors hate to go on grinding book tours. But I've always found it a useful way to be a foreign correspondent in America and take the pulse of the country.
Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day - more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow?
Inspiring conduct has so much more of an impact than coercing it.
If the Republican Party continues to take the view that there must be no tax increases, we're stuck. Capitalism can't work without safety nets or fiscal prudence, and we need both in a sustainable balance.
I've always enjoyed the communal side of Jewish life.
Netscape brought the Internet alive with the browser. They made the Internet so that Grandma could use it, and her grandchildren could use it. The second thing that Netscape did was commercialize a set of open transmission protocols so that no company could own the Net.
When I wrote 'The World Is Flat,' I said the world is flat. Yeah, we're all connected. Facebook didn't exist; Twitter was a sound; the cloud was in the sky; 4G was a parking place; LinkedIn was a prison; applications were what you sent to college; and Skype, for most people, was a typo.
You'll know the green revolution has been won when the word 'green' disappears.
No matter where I go - London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Washington, Beijing, or Bangalore - I'm always looking to rediscover that land of ten thousand lakes where politics actually worked to make people's lives better, not pull them apart.
Nature is regulating our climate for free. Mother Nature, she's been doing that for free, for a long, long time. Now do you really want to get in there and do geo-engineering and all this kind of stuff?
We've gone from thinking the fuels that powered our growth were inexpensive, inexhaustible and benign to understanding they are exhaustible, expensive and toxic. Once you frame the problem that way, people will look at solutions differently.
Every golf course should have its carbon rating on the scorecard, alongside its Course Rating, Slope, par and yardage.
Golf has an ambivalent relationship with the environment. On one hand, it's a great preserver of open spaces. Golf doesn't pave the world - it helps to green the world. But the downside is, it uses a lot of fertilizer, pesticides and water.
I've been a critic of the antiglobalization movement, and they've been a critic of me, but the one thing I respect about the movement is their authentic energy. These are not people who don't care about the world.
In Globalization 1.0, which began around 1492, the world went from size large to size medium. In Globalization 2.0, the era that introduced us to multinational companies, it went from size medium to size small. And then around 2000 came Globalization 3.0, in which the world went from being small to tiny.
There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let's stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.
When I think back on my favorite teachers, I don't remember anymore much of what they taught me, but I sure remember being excited about learning it. What has stayed with me are not the facts they imparted, but the excitement about learning they inspired.
I can see a day soon where you'll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world - some computing from Stanford, some entrepreneurship from Wharton, some ethics from Brandeis, some literature from Edinburgh - paying only the nominal fee for the certificates of completion.
Entrepreneurs don't write a 100-page business plan and execute it one time; they're always experimenting and adapting based on what they learn.
Capitalism and political systems - like companies - must constantly evolve to stay vital.
Being one of my sources is exhausting. It's not one interview and you're done. I keep going back until I feel like I understand everything.
When you go along in life and develop whatever notoriety you do, people begin to relate to you differently, and I'm just always most comfortable with the people I grew up with.
Natural gas emits only half the carbon dioxide of coal when burned, but if methane leaks when oil companies extract it from the ground in a sloppy manner - methane is far more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - it can wipe out all the advantages of natural gas over coal.
Many jobs at Google require math, computing, and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage. But Google has its eyes on much more.
The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect.
I attended public school with the same group of kids from K through 12.
If you don't have an ethic of conservation, you basically have a license to drive a Hummer through the Amazon.
We say that necessity is the mother of invention, and no country has more of a necessity to develop clean power than China.
Every sport needs its temple, its cathedral.
We need better neighbors, neighbors that care about the schools in their neighborhood whether they have kids in them or not, because they know that the health and vitality of that neighborhood depends on it.
I love America. I think it's the best country in the world. But I also think we're not tending to our sauce.
