(x-posted to my work blog: oer’s, dl’s reuse & culture)
the telegraph had 4000 britons last summer nominate 10 people that they thought were living geniuses. from those lists, 
6 experts in creativity from creators synectics then put together a list of the top 100 living geniuses.
some things to note of the list: 41 are american, 13 are women, 1 is from the continent of africa (nelson mandela), 6 are from asian countries (one of those 6 is the dalai lama), and matt groening, tim berners-lee and george soros were all listed above stephen hawking, the dalai lama, nelson mandela and noam chomsky.
it’s an interesting comment on how the world still works. the biggest thing that pops out to me is that – as much as many in the west want to deny it – we still live in a very sexist world. sexism is systemic and until we face it, it’s not going to end. we need to be trying to figure out how to break down sexism in the western world as much as we are trying to figure out how to control the last bit of the world’s oil. i think know that if we were to do this the incidence of violence against women in the form of domestic violence and rape would drop dramatically.
also – its a very tangible way to see that american culture has been exported hugely – at least to 4006 britons. maybe that shouldn’t be so unexpected for the 4000 britons, but experts in creativity should be a bit more aware of a world beyond america and england. personally, i don’t think that my culture has that much to offer the world. there are rich rich cultures all over the world, and while yes – the american culture is a mush of different ones -in my opinion we need a lot more mushing of more cultures.
now, what does this have to do with education? personally i think its an interesting look at the world – its a view into what britons value, and probably americans and other western countries as well. for me its an eye into things we need to be working on in our institutions of learning – if we are going to have a global economy that exploits people, the least we can do is learn about them. and if we are going to act as though sexism doesn’t exist in the west any more, then we need to be educating our young people not to be sexist anymore.
btw, who is that in the picture? pema chodron, a buddhist nun. i’m not sure why she didn’t make the list. oh wait, i do. she’s a woman who teaches about peace.
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