You will recognize the problem. When any of us sets out on a new business or other venture, one of the first challenges is to find an appropriate name for our product or enterprise. If the objective is to reach an extended public, all things being equal (which of course they never are), the best names will be short and easy to recall.
Then there is the challenge: do we wish to describe or to evoke? After toying with a very long list indeed of names which more or less well described the thing that we were trying to set out to do, phrases that somehow were able to communicate the idea of active learning and not education per se, the asymmetric and not altogether benevolent push of new technology without however forgetting the enormous opportunities that it could be opening up, the renting problems of two-speed society and exclusion in part driven by the very technologies that could perhaps be part of the solution process, the need of educating the young not so much to perform as docile workers but as active and responsible citizens, we found ourselves literally drowning in a sea of nouns and adjectives, each noble and important but the whole thing together a quite unmemorable mess.
Then the idea of "Einstein" reared its head. Short and very easy to remember. As we quickly saw in practice, quite unforgettable in fact. More than that, it also proved a name that works well in many languages and cultures. "Oh yes!, Einstein… of course."
And then too, it evokes, and that if anything in this case is even more important. At first blush of course it evokes high intelligence and high accomplishment. Now that may sound a bit stuffy and pretentious to some, but remember that an important goal of this program is to improve the self-esteem of children and others who perhaps have not had every advantage in the world. We liked the sound of Einstein in the mouth of tough kids in even tougher neighborhoods, of the unemployed fifty year old manual worker, talking about something that THEY are doing and maybe even liking.
The fact that Albert Einstein was too a person with at least his full share of human problems and human foibles also had its role in the choice. As is well known he was a late talker (waiting until he was three to join our chatting world). And of course he was dyslectic. And shy. And he had his own very real problems with the educational establishment of his time. And then too, as he aged he grew toward wisdom, showing at one or another time his full share of those traits of imperfect humanity that we all can see in ourselves, but in his life rising above them through his own will power, willingness to keep learning, and his generosity and kindness of spirit
So, there you have it! When we say "Einstein", we say it with a smile. A smile that recognizes his and our humanity, and in the hope that by sharing all this more complex picture with young people and others who are perhaps not quite perfectly integrated into society, we are perhaps helping them (and ourselves) to take some small steps in the right direction.
If you want to know more about the life and work of Einstein on the net, you can do worse than to begin with and link your way from there.
Go to Einstein Home Page