...Its not so cool to be smart as an adult, either. A friend, from China, has a PHD in Physics from MIT. He works as a programmer. he only lists his BS in Math from UT. Another friend has a perfect score on his industry certifications. He does not even list them nor his Masters. He also tones down his vocabulary and sentence detail in interview. Both men do this or they know they won't get hired. I keep my mouth shut at most of my job sites and just do the work they want. Its mostly useless to bring up higher-order issues because people either do not want to fix the real problems or they do not have the focus or horsepower to work through them, even when their current configuration is demonstrably costing them lots and lots of money. Even when you try to help people, they forget and go back to their old ways, and sometimes YOU get blamed for their mistakes. ...
This reminded me of a saying from a guy I used to work with, "Every village needs an idiot". He was content to do what was asked, and do it well, but would play the idiot instead of bringing up new ideas.
Anyway, I've skipped over most of the posts in this thread due to a lack of time. But the OP has an idea that I've toyed with for a while. We have band boosters and the sports booster clubs, why don't we form academic booster clubs? We could raise funds for academic competitions in the schools, don't limit participation to only the top kids unless there is a limit on how many can participate in any particular event. Then there could be try-outs to pick out who goes.
Now I've got to read the rest of this thread!
