The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.

Brian and I were both science students. You know science sort of math and physics side you know.

We must be willing to pay inspiring math and science teachers who have high paying alternatives in industry more to teach and reward students who take more challenging courses in high school.

Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic Chinese Japanese Korean or Russian combined.

American high school students trail teenagers from 14 European and Asian countries in reading math and science. We're even trailing France.

Like many students I found the drudgery of real experiments and the slowness of progress a complete shock and at my low points I contemplated other alternative careers including study of the philosophy or sociology of science.

We've heard from many teachers that they used episodes of Star Trek and concepts of Star Trek in their science classrooms in order to engage the students.

I suggest that the introductory courses in science at all levels from grade school through college be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals the so-called basics aside for a while and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.

NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It's sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.

What students lack in school is an intellectual relationship or conversation with the teacher.