What's America's next Sputnik moment?

What’s America’s next Sputnik Moment?

So what lessons does the original “Sputnik Moment” hold for the prospect of improving science education today?

America’s amazing response to Sputnik made us richer and stronger. But here’s why it would be almost impossible to duplicate that today.

Americans have gotten comfortable and lazy.  We are used to being the leader in all things and we feel that no one can touch us.  We need a “Sputnik Moment” to make us wake up and fight again.  But what will do it?

First, there has to be some sort of a threat that riles up the American people. It can be just a perceived threat, but the perception has to be based on something tangible. Second, there should be consensus about how to deal with the threat. Right away, the limitations of the Sputnik analogy should be clear.

There are plenty of threats that science could address: climate change, cyber-security, impending food and water shortages, among others. But none of these threats are tangible, at least not to those who would pass the budgets to deal with them. The threats—the prospects of crisis—lie in the future. There is nothing quite so dramatic as the beep of Sputnik overhead.

Obama was right that we need a “Sputnik Moment.” But, like the original, it will require a change in thinking, an expansion in the boundaries of what government can legitimately do. Or like the original, it may take a catastrophe—or the widespread perception of a catastrophe—to galvanize the change.

A Tsunami in a bottle perhaps?

Reference

Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Division of the Washington Post Company, Posted June 4, 2012,

            Can America Ever Have Another “Sputnik Moment”? By Fred Kaplan