I have not written much for Rotary the last few weeks. I had my back operated on by Surgeon Wayne Bruffett at St Vincent in Little Rock. Dr. Bruffett operated Eleanor’s back and restored her activity level quite successfully. Thus Eleanor served as a guinea pig to give me the confidence for a similar operation with Dr. Bruffett. I thought Dr. Bruffett would make me swallow a rebar to straighten me out. That is not exactly what happened. Dr. Bruffett said a prayer before the operation. He held my hand and prayed for success. I thanked him for the warmth of his words. I also told Dr. Bruffett about the worst of men I had seen in my younger years in Nazi camps. Now I am looking at you Dr. Bruffett and “I see the Best of men.
“All went well and after 2 weeks in the hospital and rehab Clinic I am home again. The nurses and physical therapists were sweet and helpful. We got into all sorts of discussions, in particular about the 11 and 8 year old sons of Dr. Maria Longing, the physical therapist. Her older son is good in math and we talked about all the opportunities he can have as a mathematician, physicist or engineer. The problem, I find every time that subject comes up, is that our teachers simply never tell their students that math is the language of nature. We transmit our ideas among each other via English; God or Nature tells us about the universe we live in with math. Perhaps that concept alone might tempt young students to pay serious attention to math and physics. I feel we must do something about the indifference too many of our students show about science.
Rotary is primarily interested in helping students to get into and through college. This alone, however, is insufficient to inspire our young people. We need to inspire them at a deeper level, to generate passion for what young people do with their lives. Such passion often shows itself in their early teenage lives. It must be encouraged at that time. Starting college without a specific aim is a loss of time, a loss of money for the parents or scholarship organizations. Here in the USA we are being overtaken by foreign students who are much more focused about their professional future. I interview many graduates at our local high-schools. What I hear, all too often, they are aiming to become a football coach. I understand that this is all our young people see on TV or talk about. We must expose our students to the vast number of fascinating studies available leading to an exciting career. It is up to the parents to guide their children into a path that would not lead to failure but to success and productivity as well as work satisfaction. Failing to do just that will decline our country into a third world nation. Obviously, hard science is not the only path, other goals like medicine, business, law, military and so on offer productive careers. I just talk about science because of my own background.