There was no handbook on starting an architecture school, let alone one in a far-flung locale, in a country much different from our own. We knew we needed to offer classes in basic design, as well as those in strength of materials and in math. We made humanities a requirement, too. We had brisk discussions about developing a curriculum around Islamic architecture; instead we settled on design studios that encouraged students to be inspired, broadly, by the culture of East Pakistan. (In one studio, I assigned students to design a village school made of materials transportable to the site by a simple boat.)

The bulk of attrition comes in engineering and among pre-med majors, who typically leave STEM fields if their hopes for medical school fade. There is no doubt that the main majors are difficult and growing more complex. Some students still lack math preparation or aren’t willing to work hard enough.

The moral of this story which is always understood is this: We do not teach the arts to create great artists anymore than we teach math to create the next generation of mathematicians or language arts to create the next generation of writers. We teach the arts in our schools to create great people so they are empowered with skills and knowledge to be successful in life… to do great things regardless of the vocational pathway they choose.

Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin knew this.

I realized just how limited my technologist view of thought and language was. I learned how the quantifiable, individualistic, ahistorical—that is, computational—view I had of cognition failed to account for whole expanses of cognitive experience (including, say, most of Shakespeare). I learned how pragmatist and contextualist perspectives better reflect the diversity and flexibility of our linguistic practices than do formal language models. I learned how to recognize social influences on inquiry itself—to see the inherited methodologies of science, the implicit power relations expressed in writing—and how those shape our knowledge.

Later that night, Mulan asked, "What about Roger and Don – how do they do it?"

"I… I don't know," I said.

All right, I was thrown. I thought I would have more time between frogs and same-sex intercourse than just an hour or two. I was out of my depth.

Mulan went to the bathroom and took a little longer than usual to come out. Later she said, casually, "I think I know how Roger and Don do it."

"Oh yeah?" I said.

"Yeah, Mum, there's another hole down there, where you also go to the bathroom. Maybe… you know, maybe they use that."

That's my girl, my Mulan, age nine, inventing anal sex. Smart, inquisitive, problem-solving, Spock-like in objectivity and with a total lack of squeamishness. Bless her heart.

I thought about "The Wire" in context of the controversy over Huckleberry Finn for this reason. The n-word is used constantly. So is the f-word. Take away those two words and half the script would disappear. Black gangsters use the n-word freely to describe one another; so do the cops. To my knowledge, no one has protested to HBO or the producers. This is popular culture, so who cares?

In 2011, Indian society will transform. The right to education Bill, which will be applied this year, requires all private schools to set aside 25% of their seats for the poor

Four in 10 Americans, slightly fewer today than in years past, believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago. Thirty-eight percent believe God guided a process by which humans developed over millions of years from less advanced life forms, while 16%, up slightly from years past, believe humans developed over millions of years, without God's involvement.