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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Given the assignment of indoctrinating a thousand kids at a time, the embattled school administrator reaches for the most effective tool available. Given that the assigned output of school is compliant citizens, the shortcut for achieving this output was fear. The amygdala, sometimes called the lizard brain, is the fear center of the brain. It is on high alert during moments of stress. It is afraid of snakes. It causes our heart to race during a scary movie and our eyes to avoid direct contact with someone in authority. The shortcut to compliance, then, isn’t to reason with someone, to outline the options, and to sell a solution. No, the shortcut is to induce fear, to activate the amygdala. Do this or we’ll laugh at you, expel you, tell your parents, make you sit in the corner. Do this or you will get a bad grade, be suspended, never amount to anything. Do this or you are in trouble. Once the fear transaction is made clear, it can get ever more subtle. A fearsome teacher might need no more than a glance to quiet down his classroom. But that’s not enough for the industrial school. It goes further than merely ensuring classroom comportment. Fear is used to ensure that no one stretches too far, questions the status quo, or makes a ruckus. Fear is reinforced in career planning, in academics, and even in interpersonal interactions. Fear lives in the guidance office, too.
The message is simple: better fit in or you won’t get into a good school. If you get into a good school and do what they say, you’ll get a good job, and you’ll be fine. But if you don’t—it’ll go on your permanent record. Years ago, five friends and a I were put in charge of a 150 rowdy fifth-graders for a long weekend up in Canada. It was almost impossible to be heard over the din—until I stumbled onto the solution. All we had to say was, “points will be deducted,” and compliance appeared. There weren’t any points and there wasn’t any prize, but merely the threat of lost points was sufficient. Instead of creating a social marketplace where people engage and grow, school is a maelstrom, a whirlpool that pushes for sameness and dumbs down the individual while it attempts to raise the average. 29. The other side of fear is passion There really are only two tools available to the educator. The easy one is fear. Fear is easy to awake, easy to maintain, but ultimately toxic. The other tool is passion. A kid in love with dinosaurs or baseball or earth science is going to learn it on her own. She’s going to push hard for ever more information, and better still, master the thinking behind it. Passion can overcome fear—the fear of losing, of failing, of being ridiculed.
Page 2 and 3: This edition is designed to be view
Page 4 and 5: if you don’t underestimate me, I
Page 6 and 7: 1. Preface: Education transformed A
Page 8 and 9: The two advantages most successful
Page 10 and 11: Most of all, go do something. Write
Page 12 and 13: that we ought to become the cheaper
Page 14 and 15: The pursuit of knowledge for its ow
Page 16 and 17: 5. Column A and Column B Aware Cari
Page 18 and 19: Changing school doesn’t involve s
Page 20 and 21: Those who worry about the nature of
Page 22 and 23: Building a person’s character was
Page 24 and 25: 11. To efficiently run a school, am
Page 26 and 27: 13. Which came first, the car or th
Page 28 and 29: The results: Among girls, the resul
Page 30 and 31: Homework during the day, lectures a
Page 32 and 33: I don’t think it’s practical to
Page 34 and 35: 20. Life in the post-institutional
Page 36 and 37: Too often, all these constituents a
Page 38 and 39: 23.And yet we isolate students inst
Page 40 and 41: about the power of choice and free
Page 42 and 43: contract, once its contents have be
Page 46 and 47: The problem is that individual pass
Page 48 and 49: e obedient helped us educate them.
Page 50 and 51: Fortunately for my side of the argu
Page 52 and 53: from the consequences of your actio
Page 54 and 55: Rebecca trained to be competent, ex
Page 56 and 57: Interchangeable workers were essent
Page 58 and 59: This is not the future of our econo
Page 60 and 61: 39. Where did the good jobs go? Hin
Page 62 and 63: kind of insurance policy, diagnoses
Page 64 and 65: 41. Judgment, skill, and attitude T
Page 66 and 67: didn’t do as well to spend time w
Page 68 and 69: 45. Shouldn’t parents do the moti
Page 70 and 71: Then, as often happens to instituti
Page 72 and 73: School is still about obedience and
Page 74 and 75: And it certainly taught you to acce
Page 76 and 77: Nothing in the world is more danger
Page 78 and 79: 52. The race to the top (and the al
Page 80 and 81: Fast, smart, and flexible are embra
Page 82 and 83: There are two things I take away fr
Page 84 and 85: 59. The evolution of dreams Fairy t
Page 86 and 87: 60. Dreamers are a problem And then
Page 88 and 89: The economy demands that we pick ou
Page 90 and 91: For the next half hour, I sat and l
Page 92 and 93: 64. Connecting the dots vs. collect
Page 94 and 95:
care about, he explains. “That’
Page 96 and 97:
I’m concerned about fact ignoranc
Page 98 and 99:
They weren’t sold on a forward-le
Page 100 and 101:
NOW UV STARTED READIN DIS DUNT STOP
Page 102 and 103:
One use will be that whatever you
Page 104 and 105:
And most important, why settle for
Page 106 and 107:
Want to see it worked out? That’l
Page 108 and 109:
other teacher always has merely the
Page 110 and 111:
76.Emotional labor in the work of t
Page 112 and 113:
Those who run these organizations a
Page 114 and 115:
three inches taller than the younge
Page 116 and 117:
80. American anti-intellectualism G
Page 118 and 119:
And the boss feels the same way abo
Page 120 and 121:
Hence the question I ask to every t
Page 122 and 123:
The challenge is that the connected
Page 124 and 125:
90.Reading and writing In the conne
Page 126 and 127:
She’s not a genius, nor is she gi
Page 128 and 129:
Public schools were the great level
Page 130 and 131:
95. The coming meltdown in higher e
Page 132 and 133:
As a result, there are millions of
Page 134 and 135:
The solutions are obvious. There ar
Page 136 and 137:
Those are the only sorts of questio
Page 138 and 139:
Some measures are: SAT scores GPA a
Page 140 and 141:
problem: the thought that regimente
Page 142 and 143:
A survey of first-year history unde
Page 144 and 145:
No. But applying ever more effort a
Page 146 and 147:
105.If you could add just one cours
Page 148 and 149:
I don’t think it’s an accident
Page 150 and 151:
more before they can do productive
Page 152 and 153:
We’ve been spending a fortune in
Page 154 and 155:
112.The schism over blocks Jean Sch
Page 156 and 157:
In case you missed it, it involves
Page 158 and 159:
The way we teach it actually decrea
Page 160 and 161:
A running-back might learn from a f
Page 162 and 163:
or Lampoon is a connection you will
Page 164 and 165:
If then, on the interval If converg
Page 166 and 167:
figure out what it is. We are strug
Page 168 and 169:
Giving a presentation Handling a ne
Page 170 and 171:
most parents just don’t have the
Page 172 and 173:
And your kids? Your kids need a pla
Page 174 and 175:
The next library is a place, still.
Page 176 and 177:
Harvard, of course, is a good colle
Page 178 and 179:
For starters, though, start using t
Page 180 and 181:
The lesser-ranked schools are less
Page 182 and 183:
In fact, according to research by G
Page 184 and 185:
ought to/should/will create a unive
Page 186 and 187:
experience. The right college is th
Page 188 and 189:
But in the meantime, go. Learn and
Page 190 and 191:
133.Bibliography and further readin
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?