An Open Letter to My Sons: It's YOUR Road

To my sons (and young people everywhere who want to change the world):

There is no "right" way. Especially right now. I can see it in your eyes: a fire, really a spark right now, burning, waiting for some oxygen to really fuel it. You feel stifled, restrained by the system and structures around you (including your dad and me). I remember that feeling.

I just knew I would be a famous actress. Part of me still believes it (at my age!). Now, though, that passion I had is funneled into other pursuits. I want to change education so that people like you and me don't have to suffer through years of feeling like our fires are not being stoked. What if you had an education that found out what your dream was and did everything possible to support it? That is what every child deserves. The system, though, is not going to give it to you, so you need to find it yourself.

What I want to tell you is that there is no "right" way. The pressure right now is to get good grades, graduate from high school, go to a good college and get a good job—but that may not be your path. More people than you know follow a different path...and that is OK. Do I want you to get good grades? Sure. Do I want you to go to college? Yup. But if you don't, that can be OK too.

I say can be OK because there is one condition: you need to be pursuing your passion. Most famous people who didn't graduate from college (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Halle Berry, Jennifer Anniston, Michael Dell, etc.) have one thing in common—they left to pursue their passion. Whole-heartedly. Doggedly. Without distraction. If you don't go to school so you can sit around and play Call of Duty all day, that's one thing. If you're out there kicking ass and taking names, that's another. (And one way receives our financial and moral support, and the other way doesn't. Just so you know.)

(Can I add a caveat to my caveat? Sometimes what may look like "playing" to others may not actually be "playing." When Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College, he hung around and audited classes including calligraphy. At the time it appeared to have no practical application in his life—it just interested him. The "usefulness," however, became clear a few years later when he and Steve Wozniak created the Mac—the first computer with beautiful typography. In Steve Jobs' words: "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.")

For some reason, we like to make young people think that there is only one path, one right way, but that is a lie. Education, especially as it exists today, is mostly an exercise in learning how to follow the rules, to tolerate boredom, and, at best, to demonstrate that you can show up everyday and get something done. If you can do the latter part, though, if you can show up and get something done, even outside the structure of school, then you are already on your path to success.

So fear not. Do your best in this system where you do not fit, and then make your own way. Keep your eye on the prize and know that with hard work and persistence, you will get there (please note that it is highly unlikely that it will be handed to you). If you go to college right out of school, if that's the right path for you, great. But college will always be there if there is something you need to know that you can't learn some other way (for instance, if you suddenly decide that "rock star" doesn't cut it and you'd rather be a surgeon or an attorney). (And please don't tell Grandma I said this.)

In the meantime, know that you are a talented, brilliant human being, regardless of what anyone else thinks or what everyone else is doing. It can be a tougher road when you're making your own way, but it is your road. Make the most of it.

(By the way, Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University is one of my favorites. Watch it sometime. )

Love,
Mom

You Can Want What You Want

Most likely you've heard some version of Steven Covey's habit of highly successful people, "Begin with the end in mind." After all, if we don't know where we're headed, then how will we know when we get there? Once you know where you're going, though, have you thought about why you want to get there?

Recently, I've noticed in many facets of life--business, education, our personal lives--we have an end in mind, but we don't seem to know why we want what we want. Case in point: I am working with a large electronics company this month and the executives wanted to post a long, un-engaging video, followed by a test, for their sales training people. When I--as an experienced curriculum designer--suggested a more engaging video, in smaller segments, with an element of interactivity, they immediately pushed back. Not because of money, but because they are concerned about their sales people hearing every bit of content. Forget that these are sales people who very likely don't want to sit and watch a video anyway. Forget that sitting and watching/listening to video is the least likely way that anyone is actually going to learn anything.

Then, they wanted to add safeguards so that people couldn't skip the content and just pass the test. Um. Huh? So what is the point of the test? To make sure they understand the content. If they understand the content and can pass the test without watching the video, what's the point of making them watch the video? They had a clear "end" in mind, but was their "why" really in the best interest of the people they are claiming to serve?

Haven't we really gotten to the same place in education? We have an "end" in mind--every kid can pass these ridicu...I mean, uh, state tests. So we put little tests and exercises in place that will ensure they pass the state test. Forget if the kid understands the concept or not--it's important that he or she put the time in doing mundane activities, because after all, isn't that what life is about? Isn't that how the U.S. is going to regain it's role as a leader and innovator? If we have a bunch of kids who are really great at doing hours of sitting and listening to lectures, and then doing pointless exercises? Again, tests in themselves can serve a legitimate purpose, but why is doing well on the test the end we have in mind?

And finally, how many times have you caught yourself--with your kids or your spouse or your friends--insisting that something needs to be a certain way? As someone who prides myself on being "out of the box", I find myself quite frequently insisting that something needs to be like this or that, until I stop for two seconds and think, "why?" Pretty much 10 times out of 10 I discover that whatever parameters I've put around the situation are self-imposed and there's no good reason that we can't get to the "end" a different way.

You can want that your salespeople will sit and listen to a boring video and take a test.
You can want that our nation's kids (and therefore, our nation) will achieve success by listening to lectures, performing mundane tasks, and getting great test scores.
You can want that your husband, or kids, or friend will do what you want them to, the way you want them to do it.

But wanting it doesn't make it so. And asking WHY you want what you want may just open up a new, better way of getting to that end you have in mind.

Why Can't Fun be Serious Business?

I'm not sure what it is about our American heritage that tells us that if it's fun, it's not serious or productive. Perhaps it's not just our American heritage at all, and I'm not sure that it's even "Western" thinking; from what I've heard those Eastern thinkers can be all work and no play as well. Whatever it is about human development, we've created the notion that fun and "real work" are mutually exclusive.

Maybe we need to stop lumping all "fun" into one basket. Of course there is the fun that is just fun for fun's sake. Frolicking in a pile of leaves, swooshing down a ski slope, or maybe a shot of tequila (or two) now and then. I would argue that ALL fun teaches us--sometimes lessons we don't want to learn (especially the tequila).

In all seriousness, though, fun is not only important for learning, I would argue that it is an essential element. Maybe we need to redefine fun. Think about the times when you've had the best learning experiences. For most of us, it doesn't include the many, many hours we spent in traditional classrooms, being lectured at by a teacher and regurgitating some form of what he or she spewed at us. For most of us, it doesn't include our professional education credit classes, training programs offered at work, or the conference sessions that cost our employers thousands of dollars. What's YOUR most memorable educational experience? Why was it effective?

Fun doesn't mean just being silly--although that IS fun. Fun means being involved, engaged, moving, thinking, experimenting, relating. When we create an environment where people can try new things, where they can fail and learn from failure without judgment, where they can celebrate success, where they can speak freely and brainstorm ideas without ridicule, where they can share those success and failures, WHERE THEY CAN DARE TO STEP OUTSIDE WHAT IS COMFORTABLE--then learning takes place. We think uncomfortable is not fun, and most of us avoid it at all costs, but usually uncomfortable is what makes fun, fun! I could go on and on about this forever, but I don't have the room and you don't have the time. So, I will share these links.

Fun in school: Quantum Learning/Supercamp
Fun at work: Coaching Ourselves, On Your Feet
Fun in personal development: Interplay

If you're a teacher--make learning fun for your students. If you're a manager--make learning fun for your employees. If you're a parent--make learning fun for your kids. Most importantly--make learning fun for yourself. Seriously, you just might learn something.

Moving education forward?

I've been commenting a lot on education blogs these days. Maybe it's that my mom was a public school teacher for over 30 years. Maybe it's that I've been working in corporate/adult education for the last 20 years. Maybe that it's the fact that I have two kids who don't "fit" into traditional educational situations. Maybe that it's the fact that I'm sick of talking about a system that isn't working and especially tired of throwing money at it.

We've made so many advances in so many areas, but American children by most accounts are falling behind. Whether or not the statistics bear that out (whatever way you choose to skew them), I have seen with my own eyes that we are not preparing children for the future--we are barely preparing them for the present.

Do not mistake this for an attack on our teachers--teachers are heroes to me. They are called to their work and by and large they do an amazing job, working many hours, receiving insulting pay, and putting in ridiculous hours. Teachers are not the issue (again, for the most part).

The primary issue is change. I listened to Meryl Streep's address to the graduates of Barnard College the other day. She said something that rang so true to me: "There is only change, resistance to change, and more change." Our educational system has resisted change for hundreds of years. It's like a snail moving in a world on hyperdrive. We know so much about how people learn, and today's kids learn differently than even my generation did. AND they have so many more tools at their fingertips. WHY aren't we changing our educational system to fit the needs of our kids, the needs of our future, rather than continuing to throw money at a system that isn't working for so many?

We know better. It's time to do better. It's time to break out of the box. It's time to do better for our kids. It's time to make better use of our money. It's time to stop arguing, stop speculating, and start trying new things--on a large enough scale to give them an opportunity to work. It's time.