What's The Capital Of The United States Again?

So this is what the state of education in the United States has come to.

We were having dinner last night with another couple. 

They asked my daughter, "Do they still teach geography in school? They don't teach that anymore do they?"

My daughter said, "Yeah, we learned a lot of geography" and gave some good examples both modern and ancient. 

So the guy says, "Well I don't think a lot of other schools are teaching geography anymore, like they used to with us."

Then he tells us a story how someone they know was asked what the capital of China was.

And he goes to me, "You know, you know [he emphasizes again], what the guy said?"

I looked at him a little puzzled by this question, like what could someone possibly answer to such a simple question, so I said, "Well I hope they said Beijing."

He nods his head back and forth no, eyes closed, lips pursed, like we won't believe what he was about to say.

Then, he says, "The guy said that the capital of China is...JAPAN!"

I looked at him my eyes squinting in disbelief, like that can't be a for real answer, right?

"No," he says, "That was what this guy thought, can you believe it?"

I said sort of laughing out loud, "Well maybe if World War II had ended differently that would be correct."

It sort of reminds me of the famous goof when Clinton gave the Russians the now famous "Reset Button."

It was supposed to indicate a thawing and renewal of peaceful relations, only the word printed on the button was "Peregruzka" meaning a more hostile "Overcharge."

Oops! 

Maybe the overcharge referred to was prophetic of the West's losing the strategic Crimea to the Russian blitzkrieg in 2014. How much did that mistake cost us?

I guess it's not only STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) suffering in our educational system. 

How's that standards based education reform "No Child Left Behind" (2001) working out? 

It definitely seems like some folks are most definitely being left behind if not completely lost in the system.

At this rate, I fear the capital of the United States is now Iran. ;-)

What's The Capital Of The United States Again?

Happy 4th From Washington DC

Go Independence Day!

But what does it mean?

We are independent from British rule since 1776.  

That made us a free nation.

We are free to be...but be what? 

1) Safe and Secure - Have a strong military, intelligence, and homeland security to keep the peace or compromise on national security and make bad deals for political expediency and face the consequences by a host of crazed terrorist threats, a nuclear Iran, a belligerent North Korea, a bellicose Russia, or a rising confrontational China. 

2) Prosperous And Self-Sufficient - Strengthen education, encourage innovation, invest in research and development and advanced manufacturing, cultivate a motivated and capable workforce, and manage a fiscally responsible economy or spend recklessly and indiscriminately driven by pork-barrel politics and special interests and eventually bankrupt our richly-endowed nation.

3) Equal And With Fundamental Human Rights - Ensure equality and opportunity for everyone under the law, where everyone has respect and dignity and the protection of basic human rights or discriminate in large and small ways perpetuating the have and have nots in every fiber of our society, where the rich get sickeningly richer and for everyone else you're sh*t out of luck. 

4) Socially Just - Provide for a just and fair society ensuring that people are duly protected and crime does not pay or irresponsibly live in managed chaos and let violent criminals back out on the streets in a revolving door of recidivism rather than rehabilitation. 

5) Environmentally Responsible - Safeguard our environment and natural resources, invest in renewable energy resources and sustainability, reduce, reuse, and recycle, and give a hoot and don't pollute or just pig out now and leave an inhospitable gutted world for later. 

6) Democratically Governed - Rule with righteousness and integrity, give back to the people, be open and honest, listen to all sides and ensure a balanced fair approach or perpetuate lies, deceit, corruption, conspiracy, fraud, waste, and abuse. 

Not everyone in the world is so lucky to be free.

Maybe this Independence Day, we think not just about the new Terminator movie, shopping at the mall, and feasting at the BBQ, but also what we want this treasured freedom to mean, what our "leaders" are leading us to, and are we getting the freedom we all, as human beings under G-d, innately deserve.

We can definitely raise the bar and we should. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Happy 4th From Washington DC

The Wrong Way To Test

As educators are pushed to improve students' test scores, sometimes they run afoul.

In Atlanta, 8 former public school educators were sentenced to prison--three were sentenced to as long as seven years--for a conspiracy inflating student scores by "changing answers" to the tests. 

Interestingly, in another article today, we see that not only are students put to the test, but so are job applicants. 

In fact, "Eight of the top 10 U.S. private employers now administrator pre-hire tests in their job applications."

While testing can certainly show some things, they can also miss the point completely. 

I know some people that test wonderfully--straight A students, 100+ on all exams, 4.0 GPAs--and for the most part, they are wonderful at memorizing and prepping for the test...but sometimes not much else. 

Some of them have no practical knowledge, little critical thinking or creativity, and are even sort of jerky. 

And others who test poorly may be well thought, articulate, hands-on, and good with people--I'd take a million of them. 

"Failing the test" is not necessarily getting it wrong...it may just be errant to the current educational and professional testing system that values memorization and spitting back over insight, innovation, and practical skills. 

The challenge is how do we compare and contrast students and professionals competing for schools and career advancement, if we don't easily have something standardized like a test to rally around. 

Maybe there is no getting away from more holistic assessments--where we look at bona fide life and career experience, a wide range of recommendations from teachers, coaches, and supervisors, hard and soft skills (including communications and interpersonal), professional and personal ethics, genuine interest in the pursuit, and the motivation to work hard and contribute.  

Tests--students cheat, educators game the system, memorization and robotic answers are the name of the game to get the A, and boring homogeneity prevails--but it's often the easy way out to evaluating candidates for a phony success. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Wrong Way To Test

Orange Spiral, Going Up

What an absolutely gorgeous staircase.

A modern spiral with vivid orange and white. 

When I look at this, it's almost as if the staircase is in motion, like a spinning drill bit. 

The person sitting to the right of the stairs seems like they will be swept away or crushed in the next spin of the stairs.

Next to the big windows, the incoming light hits the stairs and creates shadows that give it even more life. 

Excellent job by GW University in their new Science and Engineering building. 

You'd expect to see something like this in the Museum of Modern Art...it's awesome! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Orange Spiral, Going Up

Reform The Movement

So was very glad to read this week about a top Sunni cleric who called for educational reform to combat "extremist violence."

Sheik Ahmend al-Tayeb, a grand imam in Cairo said "corrupt interpretations" of the Koran and of Muhammad was leading to a rise of Middle East-based terrorism. 

This to hopefully stem the flow of what is now being reported as 20,000 foreign fighters flocking to join ISIS. 

What is amazing here is that good Muslim people are recognizing the problem with radicalization, extremism, and violence and are speaking out. 

Yet, many of our own leaders in the Western world still refuse to say the dirty words "Islamic terrorism."

The President saying instead: "No religion is responsible for terrorism--people are responsible for violence and terrorism."

So perhaps, according to this "logic," no movement is responsible for what their people do--only the individuals are?

And therefore, accordingly, the Nazis would not be responsible for the Holocaust, nor America for Slavery, nor Communism for political purges, oppression, and violation of human rights, etc. etc. 

...in which case, there would be no apologies, no regrets, no reparations, no museums, no memorials, nothing--because this was just some individuals doing some bad things and those individuals are may no longer even be here with us. 

Doesn't this ignore the very basic and fundamental fact that when the masses follow a movement's (genuine or distorted) ideological teachings of hatred, racism, and discrimination, and the people act act nefariously on this, then does not the movement itself hold some responsibility for the murderous and evil actions committed based on their doctrine?

The Sheik who denounced terror and called for changes to the education in the Muslim community is recognizing what apparently many of our own leaders refuse to, which is that they--and we--are responsible for what is taught and tolerated in our communities. 

As Peggy Noonan recently wrote, "The reality is that the Islamic State is...very Islamic.

Currently, we are fighting a war on radical Islamic terrorism...whether that terror is committed on Charlie Hebdo, a Jewish grocery store, or the World Trade Centers. 

That does not mean that tomorrow, we are not fighting against some other movement's treachery.

This is why good people everywhere must stand up and speak out when they see religions, governments, institutions, or other movements preach and teach lies, hatred, and terror. 

Bad (or hijacked good) movements drive bad actors...so we must not only go after the bad guys, but also hold the movements themselves to account.

We must demand that the lies and distortions be called out for what they are and that truth and virtue be held up in its place. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Front Page Magazine)

Reform The Movement

Poli-trick-ians, No Way!

So periodically, I like to take a quick pulse of America.

So I find a way to ask someone(s) what they are seeing and experiencing, and what they think about what's going on in Washington, D.C.

So this time, I asked someone about whether they watched the State Of The Union this week. 

The answer?

No way!

Why not?

They said (as if they heard this little mnemonic from others before), "because, they are all 'POLI-TRICK-IANS!'"

I said, well that's cute, but what do you mean?

This is what they said (paraphrasing):

- They don't speak the truth.

- They just say what they think people want to hear. 

- It's all just fighting between the (political) parties. 

- It's not really about the people. 

- It's not about making a difference, anymore [just about being in and keeping power].

Wow, this was pretty powerful. 

I could sense the anger and frustration. 

Also, the disillusionment. 

Checking in on the ratings, this seemed to jive with CNN (and other news media) saying, "State of the Union was President's Lowest-Rated Yet."

According to Nielsen only 31.7 million people tuned in...that's out of a current U.S. population of 324 million!

On the positive side, the number of tweets was way up to 2.6 million during the hour-long address--how sweet those tweets.

Seriously though, we are here to serve the people...how do we get back their respect?

I suspect that the answer revolves around the following:

- We need to turn from fighting each other to fighting our real enemies like the threat from Islamist Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction. 

- We need to break the gridlock and get something done (lot's of things done)!

- We need to stop the political cliches and talk from the heart to the heart. 

- We need to stop thinking about ourselves and focus on the people--all the people (not the middle-class versus the rich, not main street from wall street, not the color or race that you are or aren't)!

- We need to tackle the many big problems we are facing--the national debt, national defense (including cybersecurity), environmental sustainability, raising the level of housing, food, medical care, and education for all, and of course, everything technology and innovation!

We need to go from a perception of poli-trick-ians to genuine representatives and leaders of the people for the people. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Poli-trick-ians, No Way!

The Power Of One, Many, And G-d

I took this photo at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale. 

I like how they took the pictures of the professors, administrators, and students and wallpapered it outside on the facade of the building. 

It says, "I am the voice of innovative education and civic engagement for the 21st century."

It's a cool idea showing the individuals and the power they have to make a difference as well as the aggregate of the photos, as a group, displaying that we are somehow all in it together. 

We can't just rely on others, and we can't take it all on ourselves...progress is a shared responsibility. 

We do our part and contribute to the greater group--it takes a variety of talents to get things done, so we leverage everyones strengths for the good of the team. 

- Education is one part.  

- Experience is another.  

- Engagement is a third

And all these ingredients only come together with divine providence and the good fortune from the Almighty.

This last one is the secret sauce as they say. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Power Of One, Many, And G-d

Cash And Books

I took this photo in downtown Washington, D.C. today.

It was interesting to me for a number of reasons.

First, the amount and variety of advertising here (and there was more that is not even pictured here) was a little bit incredible, especially in light of the single customer at the stand.

Second, this vendor is buying the books back from the university students at a hotdog stand--yeah, more than a little weird, no?

Aside from the fact that students pay an exorbitant amout for textbooks and then get pennies on the dollar back, now you are encouraged to make your transaction with a street vendor in the cold of December.

Anyway, you think anyone will notice this cash for books stand? ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Cash And Books

Finals Week

This was a funny (-sad) picture right outside the new Science and Engineering Building at the prestigious George Washington University today. 

It looks much like a noose and is lit up by the glass and modern finishes of this new building. 

So a colleague says jokingly to me "Is that because of [the stress of] finals week?"

Now execution and suicide are definitely not a laughing matter...

But what a juxtaposition of this gorgeous new building going up and the old time hangman's noose (almost) hanging down. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal) 

Finals Week

Say Little And Do Much

New Article by Andy Blumenthal here in Public CIO Magazine. 

"It's not what we say, it's what we do that really matters."

Hope you enjoy!

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Say Little And Do Much

Didn't Do It

My elderly father retold a funny joke to us yesterday when we visited him at his assisted living home.

It goes like this...

A teacher in school asks the classroom of children, "Who killed Abraham Lincoln?"

One little child in the front of the room meekly raises his hand, and when called on by the teacher answers,"I didn't do it!"

The teacher is taken aback at the response, and after class calls the child's father and tell him to come in after school to discuss this. 

After school, the father shows up and sits down with the teacher, and listens to him repeat the story about what happened in class.

The father is visibly annoyed, and when the teacher is done staunchly says, "If my son says he didn't do it, then he didn't do it!"

Ah, I suppose one could take this as a sad commentary either generally-speaking on the state of our education system or in particular of this family that is quite clueless--and where it's clear that the apple does not fall far from the tree. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Didn't Do It

We Need More Rabbit

This was a funny scene down at Foggy Bottom today.

The Nesquik rabbit was giving out chocolate milk bottle samples.

On a warm August day today, this was nice. 

But also, it was refreshing to see a little light-heartedness downtown. 

We all--adults and kids--need more of this--to enjoy life.

It was interesting how we are so going in the opposite direction these days.

Not only with all the bad news around the world...

But even with how hard we have to work just to keep up (24/7) and with a world where our kids are having to work and miss out on what is supposed to be some more or less carefree exploratory years to find themselves. 

Now it's SAT prep, AP classes, internships, volunteer opportunities, and extracurricular activities--all the time. 

In this regard, in the Wall Street Journal today, there was a review of a book called Excellent Sheep.

The book's author explains how "For many students, rising to the absolute top means being consumed by the system...[where they] sacrifice health, relationships, exploration, [and] activities...[those things] essential for developing souls and hearts."

The kids are often working so hard that they are anxious, depressed, and often miserable. 

When getting ahead and becoming wealthy (a priority for 80%!) becomes the prime reason for our young adults' existence, maybe we have missed the boat in terms of finding true meaning and joy in life. 

Hard work and striving for success is a good thing, but worshipping the proverbial "golden calf" is not productive. 

Like the rabbit, I would give a thumbs up to those for whom a more well-balanced life rules the day--where success, meaning, and joy all play an important part, and we can drink some chocolate milk and not take everything so darn serious. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

We Need More Rabbit

Who Do You Want To Be?

Walking through the halls of one of the local schools, there was this awesome display of cutout hands. 

Each hand, done by a student, was supposed to represent who they wanted to be as people. 

In the center of each was a core saying/belief of the student written on the palm.

And then on each of the five fingers was their personal aspirations:

Emotionally
Physically
Socially
Intellectually
Spiritually

I thought this was a really cool assignment to think and focus on where we're going with our lives and what our personal goals are. 

Like a mini-personal architecture, these hands are the hands of our young people who have their lives ahead of them and the energy and opportunity to shape their futures. 

No, none of us has control over the future, but we can do our part to shape who we are as human beings, as this student says: 

"I am who I want to be."

Of course, we have to choose wisely, work hard, and go for it! 

We never know if there are any true second chances.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Who Do You Want To Be?

From Memorization To Thinking

Our education system continues to suffer as we rank somewhere between 17th and 20th globally. 

This means that our economy will assuredly suffer in the future from the global competition that strangles us.

Some prominent experts in the field, like Walter Isaacson, say that innovation occurs at the intersection of arts and humanities meeting science and math--and I really like that. 

Personally, this inspires me to think about whether education reform is perhaps focused too much on the teachers, tests, and core curriculum, and less on changing the way we are approaching education in the first place. 

For as long as I can remember (i.e. even when I was in school way back when), we based our education on lots of memorization--multiplication tables, periodic tables, vocabulary, history, and much more. 

For those with great short term memory, you could do very well to memorize, spit it out, and forget it, so you can start all over again with the next great wave of facts and figures. 

The emphasis on memorization of basics, is important in getting a foundation of knowledge, but seems to me to come at the expense of critical thinking and problem solving skills. 

From my own experience and watching my kids in school, I often see boredom at raw facts, and excitement and self-satisfaction at figuring something out. 

Yet, too often students are asked to do rote memorization and test accordingly, rather than really think. 

You can't memorize innovation, but rather you need to be able to apply learning. 

In this day and age, where facts are but a Google search away, memorization is less important and real analytical, reasoning, problem solving, and communication skills (all anchored in solid core values) are more relevant to our national and personal success. 

Yet, have our school caught up with this?

Unfortunately, it seems most have not, and perhaps that is one reason that many of our preeminent innovators are dropouts--from Steve Jobs to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Ted Turner, etc. 

Will we ever get away completely from memorizing the basics? Certainly not. Do we need to spend so much of K-12 education and even college years playing instant recall? What a waste!

The best experience that I remember from my younger daughter in school was her activities in the Ethics Bowl, where schools competed in analyzing ethically challenging situations and arguing the merits of the various sides. They learned to think and articulate their reasoning and conclusions and that is the best education that I can imagine. 

Until we stop using education techniques from the dinosaur age--memorizing species and trying to recall where the eggs are buried, I fear we are doomed to subpar educational performance--in a boring, memorizing, and non-thinking way. 

No wonder the kids want to develop the next great iPhone app and use their textbooks as a handy-dandy booster seat. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Lansing Public Library)

From Memorization To Thinking

Don't Send Parenting To The Cloud

So my youngest daughter is taking her SAT's.

Where did the years go?

As a parent, what's my role in helping her prepare?

With all the new technology out there, you'd think I was just a parental annoyance...yeah, in some ways I am. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, "parents are too tired, too busy--or too mystified to help" with homework. 

And now "digital tutors" are taking their place for about $24 to $45 per hour (and even prorated per minute).

For example, on Tutor.com you can get on-demand tutoring to text chat and do calculations on a shared screen with your kid. 

Tutor.com has about 1,200 tutors, 95% from Bangalore, India staffed by "moonlighting or retired teachers, college professors, or [other] professionals."

Other online resources include Khan Academy with educational videos, Chegg.com with answers to homework problems from 2,500+ textbooks, and StudyBlue.com for sharing "study guides, notes, and flashcards."

While these online tutoring resources can be a huge help for students, I think that parents can still play an important role. 

Recently, my daughter and I have carved out some time every night to sit down at the dining room table with books, scrap papers, and our own flash cards to study, together. 

What I am finding is that this is a really special time for us to bond and sort of be in this SAT rite of passage together, where I can provide emotional support and some structure for the studying.

We also have signed her up for a more formal review class as well as some online resources, but I am glad to be a parent to my children and not rely only on canned cloud solutions.

While I don't know most of the answers and she does--I take that as a good thing. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Don't Send Parenting To The Cloud

Why Memorize?

G-d, I remember as a kid in school having to memorize everything for every class--that was the humdrum life for a schoolchild.

Vocabulary words, grammar rules, multiplication tables, algebraic and geometric equations, scientific formulas, historical events, famous quotes, states and capitals, presidents, QWERTY keys, and more. 

It was stuff it in, spit it out, and basically forget it.

This seemed the only way to make room for ever more things to memorize and test out. 

In a way, you really had to memorize everything, because going to a reference library and having  to look up on the stacks of endless shelves or microfiche machines was a pain in the you know what. 

Alternatively, the home dictionary, theasarus, and encyclopeda were indispensible, but limited, slow, dated, and annoying. 

But as the universe of knowledge exploded, became ever more specialized, and the Internet was born, looking something up was a cinch and often necessary. 

All of a sudden, memorization was out and critical thinking was in. 

That's a good thing, especially if you don't want people who are simple repositories of stale information, but rather those who can question, analyze, and solve problems. 

Albert Einstein said, "Never memorize something that you can look up."

But an interesting editorial in the Wall Street Journal by an old school teacher questions that logic. 

David Bonagura Jr. proposes that critical thinking and analysis "is impossible without first acquiring rock-solid knowledge of the foundational elements upon which the pyramid of cognition rests."

He says, "Memorization is the most effective means to build that foundation."

As a kid, I hated memorization and thought it was a waste of time, but looking back I find that more things stayed in that little head of mine than I had thought. 

I find myself relying on those foundations everyday...in writing, speaking, calculating, and even remembering a important story, principle, saying or even song lyrics.

These come out in my work--things that I thought were long lost and forgotten, but are part of my thinking, skills, and truly create a foundation for me to analyze situations and solve problems. 

In fact, I wish I knew more and retained it all, but short-term memory be damned. 

We can't depend on the Internet for all the answers--in fact, someday, it may not be there working for us all, when we need it. 

We must have core knowledge that is vital for life and survival and these are slowly being lost and eroded as we depend on the Internet to be our alternate brains. 

No, memorizing for memorization's sake is a waste of time, but building a foundation of critical skills has merits. 

Who decides what is critical and worthwhile is a whole other matter to address.

And are we building human automatons full of worthless information that is no longer relevant to today's lifestyles and problems or are we teaching what's really important and useful to the human psche, soul, and evolution. 

Creativity, critical thinking, and self-expression are vital skills to our ability to solve problems, but these can't exist in a vacuum of valuable brain matter and content.

It's great  to have a readily available reference of world information at the tips of our fingertips online, but unless you want to sound (and act) like an idiot, you better actually know something too. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Chapendra)

Why Memorize?

Still In Love After 58 Years Together

My mom and dad are still in love after almost 58 years of marriage. 

While I already knew how special they were to each other--through thick and thin--when my mom took my dad's hand at the table, and said he has always been the love of her life, it was just beautiful. 

Their life has certainly not been easy--escaping from Nazi Germany as children, losing most of their education, and coming to this country with literally nothing. But they worked hard, worshipped G-d dutifully, gave charitably, and greatly valued their family and friendships above everything else in this world. 

They are good people and a wonderful role model to all of us, and we have always been like one extended family.

I'll always remember when my mom took his hand and said how much he meant to her--it was awesome! 

May God bless them both, always. ;-) 

(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal)

Still In Love After 58 Years Together

Academic Assignments In Hate

According to the New York Times (12 April 2013) a high school English teacher in Albany, New York on Monday asked students to write a persuasive essay on why Jews are evil and the source of our problems. 

The assignment stated: "You do not have a choice in your position: you must argue that Jews are evil, and...convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"

This assignment echoed a similar assignment given to students in Georgia and New York City earlier this year instructing students to calculate math problems by using number of slave whippings and killings. 

Yes, these school assignments--to our children--are shocking and appalling. 

Although they call these teachers giving these assignments, these are not real educators, but rather bigots given a classroom pulpit.

Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, the school district superintendent, said: "Obviously, we have a severe lack of judgement and a horrible level of insensitivity."

But this "apology" does not go far enough--in fact, there is no apology--just excuses and calls for sensitivity training. 

Wyngaard should've called this behavior for what it is--discrimination, anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hatred, and announced the firing of the teacher--who shouldn't be teaching anyone, anything!

With the Holocaust Remembrance Day this past Monday, April 8--this teacher added insult to injury in making such an assignment.

While teaching students how to write persuasively and argue different points of view can mean that sometimes you have to argue "the other side"; it crosses the line to assign students to write about why a whole race of people are evil, and on top of it to force them all to take that position.

According to CNews, a third of the students stood up and refused to complete the assignment--thankfully, there are some good and decent people left in this world.

Excuses are not apologies. Sensitivity training is not removal of a hateful bigot. And this school superintendent should've had the ethical backbone and courage to join the students who stood against this wrong. 

These "teachers" and school superintendent have at least six million reasons to do better, much better.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Academic Assignments In Hate

Eyes Wide Open

This is an interesting video on Plato's Allegory of The Cave. 

It is long-winded, but if you watch a little I think you will get the point.

In the video prisoners who are kept in the dark, chained, and with no real view of the outside world, have a limited perception of what exists out there.

They see shadows, but what is a shadow compared with the reality of true people, places, and things. 

When one prisoner is released outside into the light and the wonders of the world, he sees and experiences the greatness, the complexity, and the beauty of it all. 

The world, he sees, is much more than a shadow on a darkened wall. 

Watching this video, I think how fortunate I am to be able to have an education (and I am actually in a class this week). 

It is wonderful to learn and grow--and have one's eyes opened to all there is out there. 

True, not all the topics that I encounter and learn about are of great interest to me (sometimes, like everyone, I feel like I just want to get some Zzzzzs), but just being exposed to different topics and ways of thinking is a great opportunity in and of itself. 

I think sometimes, how lucky I am to live in the 21st century in an age of globalization, opportunities for advanced education, and all the technology to bridge time and space and see more than many who came before us. 

I imagine that compared to G-d, we are like the prisoners in the cave who only experience and see a minutia of reality, and G-d is out there over us, omniscient. 

Someday, G-d releases us from our mortal bodies and we ascend to heaven to partake of his greatness and then our eyes are truly opened as well. ;-)

Eyes Wide Open

If I Could Do School All Over Again

This program at Draper University of Heroes was written up in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (25 Feb. 2013) as The Silicon Valley Survival School. 

But really this is the remaking of education by venture capitalist, Tim Draper. 

There is an awesome focus on building thinkers, dreamers, inventors, and entrepreneurs--not just some more liberal arts majors without an real idea of how to apply what they learned or "what they want to be when they grow up."

The skills taught get you out of your comfort zone, break your fears, teach you life survival skills, and give you a core business foundation to hopefully, create the next great thing. 

Draper uses the terms superheroes, creativity, and imagination--skills so often overlooked in the traditional classroom where dated topics are not applied to real life, stale modes of teaching keep people in their seats and snoozing, and memorization is valued more than real critical analysis and innovative thinking. 

I am excited here by a curriculum that focuses on the big picture areas of vision, truth & justice, and creativity, and has lectures with CEOs of successful companies along side practical training in martial arts, survival, SWAT, first aid, lie detection, yoga, art and design, speed reading, cooking and more. 

This 8-week crash course teaches you how to come up with great ideas, start and finance a business, network, brand and sell, and classes are limited to 180 students, and the cost is $7,500 or 2% of your income for the next 10 years. 

The capstone is a 2-minute pitch to a panel of real investors, and the chance for Draper Fisher Jurvetson to make an actual investment in it. 

Investing in good ideas is one thing...investing in great people with the skills to succeed is even better.

I'd like to see this program expand to true University and even high-school level proportions--so we can really teach kids rather than just imprison them in mind and body. ;-)

If I Could Do School All Over Again