With spring break coming up, I thought you might find the message below interesting. It was sent to a student who took Econ of Organizations in 2016 and is having me mentor him now. We met yesterday and discussed a short story, Flowers for Algernon, that makes for an interesting read. It subsequently was made into a movie, Charly, and a book length version of the story was also produced.
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Here are a few pieces to look at that come out of our discussion today.
BTW, Flowers for Algernon came out in 1959, according to the ever
reliable Wikipedia.
This one is from 2005. It is about child precocity and whether that
predicts adult genius. It includes the work of Terman, whom I mentioned
in our discussion.
The Prodigy Puzzle
This one is from a few years ago, and is about ordinary people and their
attitudes toward creativity. It argues that everyone likes creativity
in retrospect, but most people don't like it in prospect, because it is
incurring risk. Most people want to reduce
risk and therefore block creative efforts. Inside the Box
And this last one is the blog post I wrote, which gets at the emotional
side of worrying about our impact on others and how it should guide our
behavior.
Retards
Professor Arvan
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On a different but related note, as part of my volunteer work, I recently purchased a pro account for Zoom, an online video conferencing product. It seems to work better than the video conferencing in Skype or Facebook, and the paid account has some features about recording a meeting that the free account doesn't have.
I mention this because I will be a bachelor during much of spring break, just Ginger (our dog) and me. The rest of the family is visiting my younger son out west. So I would be up for trying a call with some students then, or even just one on one, if that possibly sounds like fun for you rather than drudgery. If this interests you, send me an email and we'll try to set something up.
Finally, I was totally flummoxed that the Big Ten Men's basketball tournament ended on Sunday, but the rest of college basketball is finishing up this week. Eve if the Illini won't make the NCAA tournament, I do root for the Big Ten. Thais has got to hurt their chances.
