About this episode

Mike Palmer interviews Kenan Sahin about American educational excellence and its foundational values.

Host Mike Palmer welcomes Kenan Sahin, the Founder and President of CAMX Power and author of American Educational Excellence: The Foundation of Our Values, Democracy, and Market Capitalism, to the podcast. We explore his educational roots as a product of California public schools and early career as an MIT professor, as well as his time leading Bell Labs as a Vice President of Technology. Kenan shares the story of the catalyst for his book, which began when he challenged an expert in the Hague who could not find enough bad words for the American system. He compares US-trained engineers to those from Europe, arguing that our system excels because it prioritizes what students do with their knowledge rather than just the depth of what they know. The conversation then shifts to examine the fundamental values that define Americans as change-oriented societal rebels who cherish independence and choice. Kenan traces the origins of American educational excellence back to 1636 and the founding of Harvard College, as well as the 1647 law requiring towns to fund schools to protect children from being tempted by Satan. He contrasts our decentralized, coordinated network of thousands of local…

People in this episode

Host: Mike Palmer

Guest: Kenan Sahin

Topics covered

• American education
• educational excellence
• engineering comparison
• values and democracy
• university resilience
• local vs centralized education

Keywords

• education
• American system
• engineers
• Harvard
• local school districts
• university business model
• democracy
• market capitalism

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CAMX Power, MIT, Bell Labs

Books & works: American Educational Excellence: The Foundation of Our Values, Democracy, and Market Capitalism

Places: California, Hague, France, Harvard College

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