Seamus Carey

The following originally appeared in The Huffington Post. In a recent New York Times article (6/6/17), Natasha Singer discusses ways technology billionaires are using their expertise and money to reform education. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has invested in DreamBox Learning, a math-teaching program that, like Netflix, relies on artificial intelligence to simplify the choices and decisions of its users. An algorithm tracks students’ computer keystrokes, collecting up to 50,000 data points per student per hour. This data helps teachers pinpoint the math concepts a student is struggling with. By streamlining the learning process, the theory goes, education is more efficient and more personalized. Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Facebook, envisions an educational process in which students ultimately teach themselves. Using software that his company helped develop, students select their own assignments, work at their own pace, and, when they run into difficulties, summon a teacher who is on hand to help. He also sees the program as a way to personalize student learning. Rather than sit in a classroom with 30 students following a common lesson plan, students cluster around computers and follow a learning plan they have configured. Mr. Zuckerberg believes this approach is akin to the dynamics of a start-up company, where collaborative sharing of ideas and reinforcement of individual enthusiasm, in this case, boosts student learning.

The following is a transcript of Dr. Carey’s commencement address to the Class of 2017. Science tells us that there is a universe beyond what our senses experience; that cats and cattle and so many others with whom we share the planet can see and hear and feel things that we never know are even there. The arts, humanities, and human sciences remind us that what is true of science is true also of our relations with each other. Against all the obvious facts, we know that there is more to us—call it self, or soul, or heart, or wish—than the lives we lead or the ways we act awake and asleep. And yet most of the time, most of us live as if our limits are the true limits of the world and not the accidents of our fragile bodies. The literary critic Hugh Kenner said it this way: “What you are taking for granted is always more important than whatever you have your mind fixed on.” So at this moment, when you leave and we reluctantly let go, my charge is this: pay attention to what you can see with all the skill you have learned. Concentrate on what needs to be done and do it with the furious intellect and singular intensity you have displayed in your time here at Transylvania. But take the time to pay attention to all the things you cannot see. More than

Read “Charge to the Graduates”