The Kindest Cut

Decision has the same root word as incision, which means to cut. How does that work? Well, when you decide to do something, you cut yourself away from other options. In this way, then, your work doesn't go into wringing your hands wondering if you made the right decision, but your efforts go into making everything work out with your decision. And trust me, the voice of doubt will at least clear his throat from time to time.

As a kid, you don't need to decide what your career will look like! You don't need to have the rest of your life swinging on the knowledge base you have acquired as a child. Those choices will come later for many of you, even though some of you have the rest of your life burning in you right now, meaning it's very clear what you're going to pursue. It's smoldering inside and you're annoyed at having to wait it out for awhile. But for many of you, it's an enormously complex process.

We become very good at making good decisions the same way we become good at anything else: we practice. Middle school kids have the perfect opportunity to practice decision-making on a daily basis. How will I decide to react to that comment? How will I decide to use my time today? Or perhaps it's this, What kind of person will I decide to become? Oh, that's a good one. What kind of person will I decide to become? I had to say it again.

Here's a thought that's difficult for kids to grab with both hands: Not deciding is also a decision not to act!

So practice making decisions. Start small. Make a decision, cut yourself off from retreat, fight the inner notion to unravel your resolve, reflect on how well you did, then make another one.

Wanted: An Educational Heimlich Maneuver

The beginning of a school year is always a great time to review my precepts of change and my vision of education in America. And this is information that is going to konk three of us between the eyes.

Precept Number One: Schools and teachers (including administrators), we have to stop putting the kids to sleep! Few things are going to be more destructive to the kid's brains, or anyone's brain, than activities, voices, assignments, topics, deliveries, structures, schedules, etc. that are not challenging, novel, and markedly different than what we've been sloshing to them since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, or at least the 1970s. Schools and teachers must start studying the brain and what flavors of these things that are not on the menu that should be. The information is out there, let's go find it and start using it! Start with Eric Jensen's Enriching the Brain if you're disoriented.

Precept Number Two: Parents, and I'm hoping this is a minority of us, we absolutely need to drop our sense of entitlement and elitism in our approach to the services we think our wonderful, exceptional children are not getting. Most of the time, it is pitched as what's good for the kid when it really is a puffing of the chest for what's good for Mom or Dad. Look at your child's natural brain lead! Let his or her natural tendencies guide you in guiding them. Don't take a Tom Sawyer and turn him into a Mr. Rogers! Don't take a lily and turn it into a petunia; It won't work anyway. It doesn't mean you lower your expectations, but it does require an effort at helping them build their lives, not yours. Following their lead a bit more will help. Dr. Mel Levine's A Mind at a Time may be a great place to begin.

Precept Number Three: Kids, there is a higher chance of the Pope turning Jewish than you succeeding...unless you fall in love with hard work. You must come to love difficult things, and you must come to understand that difficulty is a fertilizer for growth. If something is acquired easily or cheaply, then it is simply something that was easy or cheap to begin with! Muscle won't grow without momentary failure with heavy weights and for you it is no different. Your issues are real to be sure. Pop culture and the media is slapping you numb with its fascination for stupidity, let alone mediocrity. Please, start reading biographies of eminent Americans! You'll find all the recipes for success you'll ever need in a well-written account of these men and women. And they are very interesting, too! Start reading these and you'll start discovering paths you may personally want to follow! Take charge of your life! Begin building a life centered around your own desires, interests, and abilities!

I don't want to over-simplify a difficult issue, but I'm not going to sit around and wait for this great country of ours to drop dead, like we choked on the hot dog of irresponsibility and blame. All of us need to raise our standard.

Proud Parent

Yay! My son has an assignment to memorize a 24 line poem on parts of speech. He's almost got it down! He achieved! He's advanced!

But he still doesn't know an English conjunction from an Educational dysfunction.

Look for my new bumper sticker, Proud parent of a 24 line memorizer!!!

This one is frustrating...don't read it.

Normally, I turn the volume down on the radio ads. But I couldn't resist the one ad that guaranteed your child would start earning A's in 30 days by using this "new, revolutionary system."

Yikes. I mean, even if it DID work...what's the kid learning? How is the kid becoming better at thinking?

I'm just beseeching parents, kids and teachers to ask themselves these questions: Because a kid is getting better grades in school, does it always mean that they are learning anything near what it takes to begin fulfilling his human potential? Should it sincerely please anybody if a kid's "grade" went from 85.8% to 86.2%? Is it past time to start asking ourselves if there is a better way to teach better material to get better results that we can better measure?

There are people out there that are more concerned about the health of their cars and the health of their favorite athletes and teams.

I REALLY need to just shut it up because, obviously, I just don't get it. I am just entirely out of touch with what really matters.

School, Roast Chicken, and You

The Industrial Revolution has been over for awhile. Times have changed but many schools haven't.

Now that school has pulled up, turned the engine off, unloaded, and moved into your lives for the next several months, this is a good time to remember something that may help you and your children to navigate your way through. Always remember that education isn't always a function of what your teacher pitches you day in and day out. You have the power to control the direction of your own learning by asking questions, wondering, speculating, thinking, studying further, contradicting and otherwise tilling the soil of what it means to be an intelligent person! You must step forward on your own and be willing to bring something else to it!

Kindergarteners wait around for the worm. By the time you get to 3rd grade, you need to start hunting your own worm. Don't forget the ancient Indian proverb: Man who stand on mountain wait long time for roast chicken to fly in mouth.

Here's cheers to school years. Fare thee well.