Dennis Littky's Big Picture of Small Schools

http://www.tompeters.com/cool_friends/content.php?note=007893.php
Dennis Littky was interviewed for Tom Peters - here are some of my favourite parts, though check out the rest!

The researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term "flow" and really studied that. He has a book called Becoming Adult: How Teenagers Prepare for the World of Work where he talks about how you become an adult thinker. He says that you study something, anything, in a very deep way, and that helps you become a deep thinker.

 

That's right, but it doesn't mean they all really read it. I added up all the minutes we're in school, and all the minutes and hours we live if we live until we're 70. If we go to school from age five until 22, we're actually in school just nine percent of our lives. That tells me that to have a real effect, we need to teach kids to love to learn, and to keep learning even after they're out of school. Otherwise, what good are we doing?

 

If they don't know Shakespeare, I'd like for them to think, "Oh, he sounds interesting," and want to read something he wrote, rather than read his plays in 10th grade, 12th grade and in college and still not understand or enjoy it (which is what I did). The important thing is to love learning and to have the skills to learn. It's about using the knowledge rather than just learning the content.

 

When you look at the people who have made a difference in our world, they're passionate about something. They're not necessarily generalists who know a little about everything. They have perseverance and a lot of personal skills.

I think that every single kid needs an individual plan with a personalized curriculum that addresses his strengths, weaknesses, and interests. There needs to be less emphasis on a standard content for everyone and more emphasis on using content to engage kids. Schools typically aren't interested engaging kids. In an EdWeek survey, students were asked to describe school in one word. The number one response was "boring."

 

And check out The Big Picture, a project that is striving to create mass-customised educational experiences for America... what if you could give your child the education that they needed to learn, grow and expand, rather than just the same boxed education that everybody gets? And they can do it, as shown by The Met, a school designed to achieve exactly that. When will we see that sort of value in education coming to students in Australia??? It will be going to China very soon...

 

They've got 24 schools so far...

What is perfection?

4:42 pm-5:12pm What is perfection?

Late last night, I was asked what makes an individual perfect, and what makes a life perfect. Rather than directly responding to these concepts, I will explain my perspective of life, which should answer the topic.

As people, we live to have a spiritual journey of growth and expansion. This journey is facilitated and characterised by a series of challenges and adventures, which may be perceived as either positive or negative, pleasant or unpleasant. Yet, if life is a spiritual journey, the truth is that no experience has either positive or negative valence, except to the extent that it leads to growth. And in this sense, some of our most painful experiences are our most positive.

Perfection is not so much something that is achieved, but is somthing that is realised. All people are 'perfect' in the sense that we are living and travelling along the journey of life. That is not to say that we are without flaws or do not make mistakes, but rather to acknowledge that each 'flaw' is another step forward.

Life makes an individual perfect. Perfection in life comes from living and experiencing fully. While it would be easy to condemn those who are so scared that they retract from engagement in the world, it is important to remember and acknowledge that they too are perfect.

Perfection comes from remembering that we are all just people living the best that we can. Those who are scared have good reason to be scared. Those who are cruel have learned to be cruel from their experiences in life. Those who are cold and loveless have learned that to put up barriers between themselves and those around them is a safer way to live. Yet it is only by accepting the lessons that are presented to us that we are able to move foward.

When we move forward, we leave behind the baggage of the past. We leave behind the cruel words said by family members, school yard companions and lovers, each having their own journey through life. We can leave that pain behind because we feel that we have 'got even' with them, or because we experience a sense of forgiveness. However, the only way to move forward is to let go of such baggage.

All life is perfect. To assert that it is not would be to simultaneously suggest that there is an external body capable of assessing and judging, and that we have insight into that judgment scale. The truth is that whether or not there is a God capable of judging us, we do not have access to their marking scheme. And even if we did, I do not believe that we would be judged against the standards of perfection that our society typically imposes.

Perfection to God would be more about how much we loved those who are incapable of returning that love than the sort of car we drive or where we live. Perfection would be more about how well we have used our talents to paint whatever masterpiece we are capable of painting. Perfection would be more about learning from the mistakes we make than of not making mistakes at all.

Our 'lower self' tends to take us away from love, peace and personal Godliness. Our lower self is concerned with judgment and criticism and our ego. Our lower self provides us with our greatest challenges and opportunities for growth. Our lower self is as perfect as we are, though its perfection comes in its tendency to highlight the limitations in our personal growth and development, providing opportunities for us to grow and expand by accessing our higher self.

A perfect individual is one living in a state of love, peace and faith - a person who remembers that they are a child of God. A perfect life is one in which an individual learns the most that they are able to learn from the experiences that they are presented with, an in doing so, lives a life focused on growth and love and peace.

May you realise your perfection and live in that peace and love in which you were born to live.

Steve Jobs rocks!

Apple Computer Inc's CEO, Steve Jobs told graduates at Stanford University's 114th Commencement that dropping out of college was one of his best decisions because it forced him to be innovative - even if just to find enough money for dinner.

Great quote: Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life...

From Roosevelt's 1910 speech…

Here are some thoughts extracted from Roosevelt's 1910 speech that I think are relevant even today...

There is a need for a sound body, and even more need for a sound mind. But above mind and body stands character - the sum of those qualities referring to force and courage and good faith and sense of honour.

Self restraint; Self-mastery; Common sense; accepting individual responsibility yet acting in conjunction with others; Courage and Resolution - these are the qualities marking masterful people.

The chief blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times; and it is the crown of blessings now. The greatest curse is that of sterility; the severest of condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The greatest of the fundamental virtues is the race's power to perpetuate the race.

Material well-being represents nothing but a foundation - worthless unless raised upon a superstructure of a higher life.

There should be equality of opportunity to render service - but as long as there is inequality of service, there should be inequality of reward. Let us try to level up, and beware of the evil of leveling down.

If a man stumbles, help him rise. If he lies down, do not waste your energy by trying to carry him.

Persecution is bad because it is persecution - we should have complete freedom provided that it does not interfere with our neighbours. Class hatred is intrinsically bad. Brutality of a man of wealth or power is, at root, merely a different manifestation of that of the envious or hateful malice directed against wealth or power.

Great republics throughout history have fallen when there has arisen a divide between rich and poor - when people give loyalty to their class rather than to their nation.

Interesting Economics

University lecturers come in many shapes and sizes, though Dr Jason Potts is one of the best! Winner of the Schumpeter Award in 2000 for his outstanding PhD thesis under Peter Earl, Jason injects passion, energy and excitement into economics of all things!!! I had the pleasure of taking a class with Jason earlier this year, and if you're doing anything in evolutionary or entrepreneurial economics (he's at The University of Queensland), look him up! Thank you, Jason, for being a lecturer for people who just want to learn...