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Stop Stealing Dreams (what is school for?) - Seth Godin

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The results:<br />

Among girls, the results were as follows: 9.5 percent chose “the chief of a major<br />

company like General Motors”; 9.8 percent chose “a Navy SEAL”; 13.6 percent<br />

chose “a United States Senator”; 23.7 percent chose “the president of a great<br />

university like Harvard or Yale”; and 43.4 percent chose “the personal ass<strong>is</strong>tant to<br />

a very famous singer or movie star.”<br />

Notice that these kids were okay with not actually being famous—they were<br />

happy to be the ass<strong>is</strong>tant of someone who lived that fairy tale lifestyle.<br />

Is th<strong>is</strong> the best we can do? Have we created a trillion-dollar, multimillionstudent,<br />

sixteen-year <strong>school</strong>ing cycle to take our best and our brightest and snuff<br />

out their dreams—sometimes when they’re so nascent that they haven’t even<br />

been articulated? Is the product of our massive <strong>school</strong>ing industry an endless<br />

legion of ass<strong>is</strong>tants?<br />

The century of dream-snuffing has to end. We’re facing a significant emergency,<br />

one that’s not just economic but cultural as well. The time to act <strong>is</strong> right now,<br />

and the person to do it <strong>is</strong> you.<br />

16. School <strong>is</strong> expensive<br />

It’s also not very good at doing <strong>what</strong> we need it to do. We’re not going to be able<br />

to make it much cheaper, so let’s figure out how to make it a lot better.

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