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Interviewed by the Observatory of Educational Innovation
Dean Kamen, participated as keynote speaker in the 3rd International Congress of Educational Innovation. As an inventor, holds more than 440 U.S. and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices that have expanded the frontiers of healthcare worldwide. He is also the founder of FIRST, an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation of young kids to understand, use and enjoy science and technology (FIRST, 2017).
Observatory: How can we innovate education in science and technology to make these subjects more interesting?
Dean Kamen: If you said to kids, “We’re going to play football soccer tomorrow” and they showed up but there’s no field, no ball, there’s only a 50-page textbook called “The History of Soccer” and then after that, there’s a quiz, to see if they know the rules. But if they never played, never kicked the ball, never ran, nobody would like soccer. Well, isn’t that how we teach science? We learn this formula, then that formula, and then there’s a quiz on this formula, and then a test on that formula. But, if you said, “We are going to build a robot” and to build a robot, students got to connect this to that, and need to understand voltage and current, and got to understand how to measure things, cut things and assemble things. And then, my robots are going to run around, and if I didn’t do it right, it’s going to fall apart like the first time you tried to kick a soccer ball and missed. But then you practice, get better and come back, and you see your robot doing more, and that’s exciting, and you’re proud of it.
So, when they say they’re teaching science in school, they’re not teaching science, they’re teaching the history of science. They learn Isaac Newton, 1687. They learn Archimedes, 275 BC. They learn facts. They learn names. They learn formulas. To this day, I don’t remember which law is which. I don’t care what the label is. I know what the laws mean and how to apply them. I believe that we should stop teaching the history of science. Science isn’t about studying those guys.
When they say they’re teaching science in school, they’re not teaching science, they’re teaching the history of science. They learn Isaac Newton, 1687. They learn Archimedes, 275 BC. […] I believe that we should stop teaching the history of science. Science isn’t about studying those guys.
Observatory: What is FIRST?
Dean Kamen: FIRST stands for (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). FIRST is an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation of young kids to understand, use and enjoy science and technology. It was founded in 1989 and has served more than 300,000 young people, ages 6 to 18, in more than 60 countries around the globe. My goal in starting FIRST was to create a generation of kids that embrace technology and see it for what it is: a powerful tool to fix the world and give them great careers. Studies have shown that FIRST alumni are highly motivated to pursue careers in science and engineering (FIRST, 2017).
Observatory: What are the competencies that you see in children who have experienced the FIRST program and that differentiate them from other kids?
Dean Kamen: People used to tell me, “Dean, you’re not going to teach kids how to be a roboticist in six weeks.” And I’d say to them, “You’re exactly right.” Of course, I don’t plan to do that. In fact, FIRST, as I said today, F-I-R-S-T, education isn’t even in our name. We are For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. If the kids recognize it, if they are inspired by it, they’ll go get an education. It will take them 10 years. We’re not going to give them an education. That’s what schools are for. To answer your question, they have self-confidence and self-respect. They understand how to work with teammates even when they disagree with them. I think FIRST is a model to show kids what the world could be like if people are open-minded and willing to learn and work hard, and willing to fail and pick themselves up and try again. That’s what they learn.
Observatory: What inspires you to work on an invention, and how do you decide what project or idea to work on?
Dean Kamen: It’s very hard to explain to somebody why we worked on a specific project. But when you look at all the projects we work on, I think the safest thing I can tell you is, there are so many big problems to work on, we end up sort of stepping onto one if we think our engineers are uniquely qualified to do it better than anybody else, based on their experience. And maybe we believe we need to do this one because nobody else will do it. So, we don’t work on any project unless, fundamentally, we believe we’re going to make a big difference. If we do this and it happens right, it’ll make a big difference to the people that need it.
For example, we worked on a water machine because we can help the largest number of people on this entire planet. It’s the biggest problem, there is no water. But, also, we worked on a prosthetic arm for a few hundred soldiers, and we hope they won’t need anymore because we hope to stop sending them out into battles to get their arms blown up. So, I guess a long answer to your question is, we finally pick the project to work on mostly if we think we’re really going to make a difference. If we had to compete with five other companies for the project it means we don’t need to do it, they’ll solve this problem and can take care of it. What I’m saying is I’m not in this to compete.
Observatory: What personality trait makes you who you are?
Dean Kamen: I guess curiosity about the world is what’s always driven me, believing that if you think about it long enough you’ll understand it, you’ll have an insight, you’ll figure out how to solve a problem if you really understand it. So, curiosity is a driving force in the world of innovation.
Observatory: Do you think higher education is efficiently delivered?
Dean Kamen: I think it could be made more effective. It could be made lower cost, and therefore it could be delivered to millions more people that desperately need it. I believe there are many things we could do to make it different. For example, I would make sure kids use the education piece for the education. In other words, I think people confuse education and training, and we use schools to do the training, and we should use schools to do the education. And for the training, schools should say to students, “If you want to be able to do this, here’s this program.” It’s Word, or it’s Inventor, or it’s some software program. “Go study this and learn how to use it.” You don’t need a professor to train you to use this program; you just need to practice it. That’s training. And then come to class and use the classroom for the education of taking your training and doing something valuable with it.
Observatory: What’s your opinion about this 3rd International Congress of Educational Innovation?
Dean Kamen: I see a lot of people from Tec de Monterrey and its 26 campuses and 37 high schools, and others that came from other institutions in Mexico and other institutions around the world, including South America. It seems like there’s a lot of energized people, energized universities, energized companies, energized parents, energized professors, and energized government people that really get it. They realize that if they want the future to be really successful and exciting for these kids and for their country, they’ve got to double down on tech, and they’ve got to give kids the inspiration and the tools to make tech part of their future. And, so far, that seems to be the mission of this convention, and that’s pretty exciting.
References
FIRST (2017). Founder, FIRST President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation. http://www.firstinspires.org/about/leadership/dean-kamen
Images: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciietec2016/albums/72157677668877466
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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