Conspicuous Human Interaction
Until today, I did not know that Easter Monday was a public holiday in Europe.
But that does explain a lot of traveling done across the continent from those I follow on Instagram ($FB).
In the United States, the stock market was open this morning and everyone returned to work from the Passover/Easter weekend.
For those families not on Spring Recess this week, I recommend reading the blog post (and its accompanying podcast episode) from Tony Isola on education:
“Public education hasn’t strayed much from 1852 when Massachusetts governor Edward Everett turned to Horace Mann for recommendations to design an education system to prepare the nation’s youth for industrial work.
The goal wasn’t to educate free thinkers.
Punctuality, obedience, and a remarkable tolerance for monotony and boredom were the main objectives.”
Axios had a good summary (as it tends to do well across all its posts) on how schools need to be rebooted:
“Breaking with traditional schooling, these new models emphasize capabilities over knowledge — with extra weight on interpersonal skills that appear likely to become ever more valuable.”
After hearing Barbara Dalio, co-founder of the Dalio Foundation, speak in person at Bloomberg last month, I was pleasantly surprised that earlier this month she and her husband, Ray, pledged $100 million to Connecticut public schools:
But the gap between public and private schools in the United States keeps growing, not only in affordability but in how the basic building blocks are constructed for its youngest students:
“Life for anyone but the very rich — the physical experience of learning, living and dying — is increasingly mediated by screens.
Not only are screens themselves cheap to make, but they also make things cheaper. Any place that can fit a screen in (classrooms, hospitals, airports, restaurants) can cut costs. And any activity that can happen on a screen becomes cheaper. The texture of life, the tactile experience, is becoming smooth glass.
The rich do not live like this. The rich have grown afraid of screens. They want their children to play with blocks, and tech-free private schools are booming. Humans are more expensive, and rich people are willing and able to pay for them. Conspicuous human interaction — living without a phone for a day, quitting social networks, and not answering email — has become a status symbol.”
As I sit, contemplating what stock to buy next… it may (unrelated to anything) be Intuitive Surgical ($ISRG), I’m reminded again that investing has its own barrier to entry internationally.
Fixing the education system for all in one country is a big hurdle, but maybe decentralized finance can level the global playing field for those wanting to join in:
