What do you want to be when you grow up?

Every year thousand (more likely hundreds of thousands!) of teenagers sit down with a parent, or a teacher, or a school counselor, and try to figure out what courses to take the next year.  And these students are asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  A few lucky children might actually have an answer but most have no clue.

So what is a student (or parent) to do?  The key is to keep as many doors open as possible.  Take classes that will lead to many opportunities.  If there is really no direction or preferred subject then try a few of these simple tasks.

Without thinking too much, quickly write down three things that you would like to achieve in life.  There are no limits except that you have to stay a human and probably live on Earth, although that is becoming unnecessary.  Then write down three things you would get if you could have anything in the world.  No restrictions. Remember these tasks have nothing to do with reality or being practical.  This is pure fantasy land.  Next, three things you would like to learn right now.  And lastly, three people, living or dead, whom you would like to meet.

Now take your lists and find common factors.  With the achievements: are they solitary or in a team?  Do they require physical skill, mental skill, both?  Are they competitive, collaborative, or a combination?  With the things: what is the appeal of each?  Do they represent a certain lifestyle?  Is that a life based on security (house, family) or adventure (fast car, world trip) or freedom (island holiday)?  For learning: are they hidden passions?  Would they take you somewhere else?  And people to meet: why did you choose them?  What do they represent that you admire?

All of these, particularly if done over and over with no repetitions allowed, will start to show you what you would like to do.  The trick is to take these clues, explore possibilities that lie in this direction, and make this into a viable career.  If you are still wandering, then head in a direction that has a secure future, while keeping your eyes open to other opportunities.  Luck is being open to opportunity combined with the courage to go for it.

So, what courses do you take?  Mathematics, because almost every career out there needs you to be able to do consecutive steps with precision.  English, because communication skills are vital.  The best idea in the world is useless if you can't communicate it to someone else.  History teaches us our place in the world.  How we got to where we are and why others might be in a different place.  And science is crucial to understand and examine everything around us.  A second language opens up huge vistas of understanding our global community.  The words of any language reflect the priorities of that people.  Take a broad spectrum, do your absolute best, and keep those eyes open.  You will be amazed at what lies out there.

And don't worry about what you will be when you grow up.  You'll find out when you get there.

Mathematics of Happiness

I have always been fascinated with mathematics.  When I was young I saw a sign on my grandmother's desk which read "Monday is a lousy way to spend one seventh of your life".  That got me thinking about the numbers of my life.  Bear with me while I play with them a bit.

If I live productively to be eighty years old I will have lived 960 months or 4,160 weeks or 29,120 days.  If I dread Mondays, that will be 4,160 miserable days of my life.  If I even take off the first 20 years in which I was not working and the last 20 years after I retire, that still leaves 2,080 unhappy days.  That just seems wrong.  I can't waste that many days when there seem to be so few in total.

So why does Monday get dumped on so badly?  Obviously because it ends the weekend and our society teaches us that fun happens on the weekends.  We are surrounded by messages that tell us that weekends are the time for partying, getting together with friends, we work our weeks so that we can enjoy our weekends.  This is all based on the notion that work is not fun.  If it is fun then it is not work and somehow it is not proper.

Perhaps this all ties in with a recurring idea in history that we are meant to suffer.  Life needs to be miserable in order to be "good" or worthy.  Happy people are either mentally unbalanced, intellectually challenged, or somehow unfairly supported by other suffering souls.  Our rational brains tell us that this is silly but we are so indoctrinated into the idea of salvation through sacrifice and suffering that we subconsciously are suspicious of truly happy people. 

I must apologize because I am unashamedly happy.  I have been that way for a long time.  I love Mondays as much as I love Fridays but then I don't work - at least not in terms of suffering.  I follow my passion and teach children.  I get fulfillment and energy from my "job" and have no cravings for weekends or retirement.

So why am I going on about the math of happiness?  Because I see it in children when they first enter the school.  Many are teenagers who have had an love of learning pummeled out of them.  The first joy of going to school in kindergarten has changed through a realization that school is often boring, usually irrelevant, and sometimes painful.  By the time they come to us, school is something to be suffered through in order to start living.

This is a crime of such magnitude that it makes me want to weep.  How can children ever acquire the skills to pursue their passion if they hate learning?  How can they even know what their passion is if they are not given the opportunity to explore it?  How can they learn what they need to know to turn that passion in a means of support?  Why does our society "teach" them that both school and work are necessary evils in life? 

By the end of Grade 12 a child will have spent nearly 2,500 days in school.  That is 2,500 days where they can be exposed to the wonders of the world with enthusiastic guides helping them along their own personal journeys.  Since we only go from Grades 7 to 12, we only have them for just over a thousand days.  And yet they can learn so quickly if they are happy.  They want to learn if school is seen as a million open doors for exploration and adventure.  It is my sincere wish that none of my students ever has to hate Mondays.  And so far, we are doing just great.

They all work...or not.

New math, unschooling, whole language, Waldorf, flipping school, Montessori... the list of educational methods is very long and constantly being amended.  And they all work - for some children  And none work for all children.  We want all children to have an equal opportunity to get a good education and that translates into each child receiving the same education.  This is a fallacy that we have been dealing with at least since the advent of women's liberation.  We confuse "equal" with "same".

We do not need educational experts to tell us what any parent of more than one child can tell us.  What works for one does not work for all.  We need to stop focusing on teaching the curriculum and start focusing on teaching the child.  The focus of public schooling is how to process the largest number of children in the most efficient way with the best use of resources.  Sounds like a valid business principle.  Except that children are not products that can be assembled on a line.  And we don't really want what that line would produce, unless we are Orwellian in our social principles.  We want children to become the best that they individually can become.  We want them to be passionate about what they do.  We want them to be successful.  We want them to be productive.  We want them to be happy.

All of which relies on nurturing them in their own unique ways.  To letting them flourish and grow within the context of their passions, abilities, and goals.  The "best" method for that is to educate the child.  Sounds simple and yet rarely happens, despite the best efforts of many good teachers.  The system keeps mandating "best practices", computer generated tests and assessments, criteria that have nothing to do with what is best for the child, or even for society.

Let teachers teach.  Give them the latest research and let them decide how best to apply it.  Use some common sense is assessing whether a child is flourishing.  Listen to parents and employers when they complain about the fact that today's students are completely unprepared for life.  Those in charge of administering the enormous education system need to start listening.  High school should not be something that you suffer through.  It should not just be a place to make friends and learn social skills.  It should be a place of learning and a place where they learn that learning is powerful, engaging, important, and wonderful.  A lesson for all times.

Education Through Art

Education Through Art

Education through Art, sounds impressive but what does it mean? What is Art? Painting, dancing, music. These are the Arts. But what is Art? Art is creativity, imagination, something from nothing, of no practical value - these are many other definitions. But more than all of these, Art is the passion. Art is the soul of the machine.

Long ago Western man decided to understand things by taking them apart. If you could grasp the function of each of the pieces then you would understand the whole. Body became separated from Mind. Physical from Mental. Reason from Faith. Practical from Artistic. For generations in sciences, philosophy, and education, we have analyzed and struggled to understand what makes us work, as individuals, as societies, and as a species. The problem lies in that only some parts are reducible to components. So we studied those parts, the body, the physical world, reasoning patterns, practical applications. And we learned how to pass these on to our children. Through formal education.

For the rest, the intangible, the soul, spirit, or whatever term you choose, we left that to the spiritual leaders, to traditions, to culture. And as a species we have been doing okay. Except recently. Now we have a breakdown of these support networks. Most families no longer have a spiritual counselor. Many have left traditions and family networks far behind in our global wanderings. So we look to our source of learning. We look to our scientists and our educators. And we ask them to take care of our children. To find the best practices for teaching. And they do their best. They use the system that they have always used. They emphasize the practical, the applicable, the concrete. Our children learn to use machines. They explore the world through their fingertips and electronic impulses which bring everything they need to them. The world is on the screen before them and they are all knowing.

No, they aren't. They don't know this information; they merely have access to it. In order to learn children must have the skills to learn. They must know how to think and use their minds in multitudinous ways. To see things from different perspectives. To imagine that which they cannot see or access. To stretch themselves. But teachers cannot help them to do that if they do not want to learn. We call them "reluctant learners" and they are a growing epidemic.

But all children learn all the time. They can't help it. It is basic instinct founded on survival skills. Knowledge keeps you alive and allows you to flourish. So what are they reluctant to learn? The very things that the scientists and educators keep telling them they need to know. They are reluctant because they are not engaged. There is no passion in their learning.

What is Art? Art is passion. Art is the realm of engagement. When you educate through art you inspire the spirit to crave the knowledge. A chemical reaction becomes a dance. A math theory becomes a thing of structure and beauty. A history lesson comes alive through the full experience of empathy. The children dream of gladiators. They wince at slavery as they read, write, draw, perform. They engage with the information and then they know it. Their passions are ignited and they are inspired and they learn.

Education Through Art.

Vision or insanity?

One man's vision may be another man's insanity.  Recently I finished Irving Stone's biography of Vincent Van Gogh, Lust for Life.  I also saw "Secretariat", the Disney movie starring Diane Lane
 and John Malkovich.  Each piece speaks directly to the theme of a personal intense passion.  In these two cases the passion produced a monumental masterpiece, or masterpieces.  In each case we have a person obsessed with one idea and that obsession eventually leads to greatness.  It is easy to see the value of following one's passion by looking at these great historic events.  As they say, hindsight is 20x20.

But what about when the past was still the future?  Van Gogh's family considered him a monumental failure, the son who could never hold down a job, never learn any business, kept bouncing from passion to passion.  His society considered him a madman and a danger.  And the other artists generally considered him to have no technique or skill.  Penny Chenery, the owner of Secretariat, arguably the best race horse ever, risked the financial future of her entire family, her own children, and her marriage for the sake of an unproven colt.  She was considered crazy by her brother, her husband, and most of the racing industry.  History has proven them to have been right.

But what about all those passions that never worked out?  Never had books written about them or movies made about them because they didn't work out?  What about the Vincents and Pennys of this generation?  How can you tell the difference?  The truth is that you can't.  The problem is not that we can't tell the difference between passion and obsessive madness.  We are asking the wrong question.  The question that we should be asking is - Does it matter?  Van Gogh's society judged him and found him wanting.  Only future generations appreciated what he did.  I wonder if he had been living now if he would have ever painted what he did.

We are so quick to analyze and label that which is different.  We want everyone to be happy.  On the surface, a lovely sentiment, but underneath it reeks of Brave New World.  Just give everyone a happiness pill and humanity is dead.  Humans need to feel passion.  They need to be allowed to pursue their passion no matter how crazy it may seem, no matter how little "success" they may achieve.  Because success is relative.  Success is socially determined and is not the same for all or for all times.  Van Gogh and Chenery succeeded because they didn't care what others thought.  They followed their own inner voice and they risked greatly in order to achieve greatness.  They did not strive for greatness.  They merely went where their passion took them.  The rest followed.

(Just an aside, I, of course, am not condoning any obsessions which lead to the damage or destruction of others.  That should go without saying.)

Just think carefully about the world that you want.  A world of "happiness" for all or a world full of passion.  And then think about our children.  Do we want them to be happy or do we want them to be all they can be?  Passion is not about happiness or success.  Passion is about strong feelings, immense energy, and a roller coaster ride of a life.  With pain, failure, stress, anger, but what a high!  We would no longer need drugs or extreme adventures to feel truly alive.  When you follow your passion you are complete.  That is a world of which I would like to be a part.