Back on July 1, the journal Nature Medicine published a study in a language indecipherable to earthlings: “Continuous neural control of a bionic limb restores biomimetic gait after amputation.” Happily, the MIT Technology Review volunteered to interpret: “People can move this bionic leg just by thinking about it.” Well why didn’t you say so? (And why not add “You guys!” to the front of that headline, and exclamation points to the back?) I thought this sounded really interesting and inspiring—and so too, it turns out, did over 100 MICDS Middle and Upper School students whom I surveyed about the study this week, along with 11 other recent technological advances.
These dozen recent innovations and discoveries first came to my attention in The Download, a daily newsletter published by the Technology Review that profiles breakthroughs across a wide range of industries and academic fields. Ranked in order of MICDS student interest, the other headlines were these:
- « How machine learning is helping us probe the secret names of animals »
- « A new smart mask analyzes your breath to monitor your health »
- « A polyester-dissolving process could make modern clothing recyclable »
- « How fish-safe hydropower technology could keep more renewables on the grid »
- « Balloons will surf wind currents to track wildfires »
- « Google’s new weather prediction system combines AI with traditional physics »
- « Your future air conditioner might act like a battery »
- « How ‘personhood credentials’ could help prove you’re a human online »
- « How battery-powered trailers could transform trucking »
- « How the auto industry could steer the world toward green steel »
- « How plants could mine metals from the soil »
I should note that even the lowest-ranked of these reports was still described as “somewhat” or “very” interesting or inspiring by a full 76% of participating Rams, one of whom expressed the hope that “we could eventually have mines with just plants in them.” (Wrote another student after placing every article in the “very” category, “I think that they are all super cool and that we should be promoting these advances in technology.”)
There may come a time this school year when I stop writing about wonder, but it will not be today. I have loved watching our fourth-grade students journey from Beasley to the Steward Family Aquatic Center throughout this week, wondering what Ms. Dastgah might have in store for them, or wondering what they might have in store for themselves—what new strengths they might demonstrate as swimmers—on each successive morning. Yesterday, for their part, some kindergarten and first-grade students were wondering about Nelson’s fur, and petting him through the playground fence to get a better idea, as Ruth and I walked him before school. (They also wondered what Ruth and I were going to be for Halloween, suggesting Snow White for Ruth and Shrek for me. I refuse to read anything into the disparity.)
On the Upper School campus later that day I wondered myself at the “good noise” that now elevates our community energy in the Alumni Dining Hall in the absence of student and faculty cell phones (and wondered too—and not for the first time this year—why we didn’t liberate ourselves from them sooner). Afterwards, I enjoyed watching our students play Spikeball on the lawn, hang out together in Founders’ Court, and talk and laugh as they walked between classes.
As for the Middle School, today at recess I had the opportunity to wonder at what appeared to be an impromptu sixth-grade wedding ceremony on the field hockey pitch at Thomas Field, but which may only have been a pretext to sing Beyoncé. Not long thereafter, I stood in wonder at the back of Eliot Chapel as several eighth-grade students spoke at our Middle School meeting about leadership and recalled highlights of their MICDS experience. They were exceptionally thoughtful and well prepared, and I felt so very proud to work alongside teachers and staff, and in partnership with parents and families, who invest themselves so tirelessly in young people of such promise.
Ours is a wonderful school, and we live in a wonderful world. Perhaps the former is more obvious than the latter, but don’t let the news media, your social media, talk radio, election year discord, or for that matter the rudest driver on the highway tell you otherwise. People are designing wildfire prevention balloons out there. They are learning the names of animals, protecting fish passing through dam turbines, building trailers to power the trucks that haul them, and learning to recycle clothes in an age of fast fashion. All of it traces to wonder, and we are in the wonder business at MICDS. We are where it begins.
“There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower,” observed the physicist Richard Feynman toward the end of his extraordinary life. “It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.”
Always reason, always compassion, always courage. How utterly wonderful it is to be alive, and how lucky we are at MICDS. We move forward in wonder together. My best wishes to you and your families for a joyful weekend ahead.
Jay Rainey
Head of School
This week’s addition to the “Refrains for Rams” playlist: Lonesome Friends of Science by John Prine (Apple Music / Spotify)