Sputnik

How Sputnik changed U.S. education. A 2007 panel observed that the nation responded to the security threat by targeting education, a reaction it has repeated since, including after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. post

The post-Sputnik reforms were put in the hands of scientists, much to the dismay of some educators and concerned citizens who had previously had enormous input on curriculum design. Several of the changes, such as including hands-on laboratory experience, remain in use today.

While Sputnik may have been a focusing event, Rudolph said changes to the U.S. educational system had been in the works for years. Education reforms began in the early 1950s and were spurred by investment from the National Science Foundation.

Baumgartner said the political agenda is crowded these days, and it is difficult to get politicians to focus on any particular issue. The Iraq war and the war on terror take up not only a lot of politicians’ time and energy, they do the same for the public, limiting the attention citizens pay to issues such as education reform.

There’re a lot of people in America that don’t like science. You have to be careful what you wish for when something like education rises to the front pages. Not only scientists respond. So do others who have very serious agendas and political power.

I am a child of the Sputnik era.* It was good.

The older kid up the street had a shop so my brother built a shop and eventually I had a shop too. We learned physics by making things that fly and chemistry with things that explode.

I told my kids they could read about homemade explosives all they want but they could not make anything explode. Adults are humorless these days, I explained. Whenever my peers came to the house they were asked, "have you ever made nitrogen triiodide?" Pretty much everyone had fond memories of doing so. wikipedia

* I have a child called Sputnik. When my daughter was born my partner who was her primary caregiver nicknamed her Sputnik, after the original Russian meaning of "travelling companion". She's now 15 and the nickname persists between them. -- Kate Bowles