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This. Programming is sponsored by

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Central Market with picnic sandwiches,

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salads and Cyprus growth midnight

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moon. She's for watching the

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Solar Eclipse more at Central

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market.com. versus.

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The engines of our ingenuity made possible

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by the friends of K U H

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of Houston. Today.

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We ask how many points to

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take off? The University of Houston

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College of Engineering presents this series

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about the machines that make our

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civilization run and the people whose

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ingenuity created them. The

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Nineteen Ninety Six Olympic Games have been

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driving me nuts. If I have to

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watch one more little girl break down

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and cry because she bounced when she

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landed, I'm going to switch channels to

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professional wrestling. I just watched a young

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man leave the hard floor and do

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three somersaults in mid air. It was

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a violation of physics that boggles the

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mind, but when he finally fell from

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the sky, he took one backward step.

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That single glitch blew him out of

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competition. This. Is no longer about

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real excellence. It's about the far dreary

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or business of tedious perfection. The only

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way you can be perfect is to

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be cautious and conservative. I call when

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I'm watching the points off mentality. You

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start off with a score of ten

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and then work your way down. I

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guess if you do nothing you will

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stay a perfect ten forever. Some Olympic

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events or untroubled by points off thinking

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when you race you race against the

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clock. When you high jump or long

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jump your out to beat gravity. Any.

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Way you can and that process

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can lead to invention. At some

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point, a high jumper thought of

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pitching his body over the bar,

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backward and landing on his back

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when that happened. A whole new

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world open to athletes, but gymnasts,

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divers, and most ice skaters are

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dedicated to being perfect. Children who

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live to please adults by being

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perfect, suffer, whether their athletes or

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not, I worry far less

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about beating up young bodies and

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I do about beating up young

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psyches. Points off thinking isn't limited

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to the Olympics. We teachers are

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painfully aware that the graduate who

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goes on to greatness was often

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as see student we to do

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a lot of points off. grading.

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Yes, how can anyone be both

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a risk taker and a straight

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a student? If the purpose of

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grading Olympic athletes is to identify

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a champion, the purpose of school

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grades is to drive. Learning Very

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different objectives but points off

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thinking undermine them both. Any

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teacher worthy of the name

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like to see students who

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don't care about grades who

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don't care about any rewards

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comes from outside. Good teaching

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means fostering learning that satisfies

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a craving inside the student.

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It means helping students to

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find that craving but that

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is hard to do. It's

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difficult. The weights trying to

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greatest gymnasts is difficult. It

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so much harder than just deducting

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points for moving a leg when

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you land on the map. Points

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off is the easy way. The

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easy way to raise a child

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tooth. Rank A research proposal to

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tell right from wrong points off

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is worse than just avoiding the

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real content of human accomplishment. It

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is the way we tell children

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that action simply gives them a

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to slip out of first place.

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I'm John Lean hard at

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the University of Houston, where

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we're interested in the way

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invented mines.