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Producing Cogs When We Need Engines: A 3 Act Education Tragedy

May 18, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

Education Tragedy: Producing Cogs When We Need Engines

4-year-old Adam: "Do you know what a tick is?"

Mom/Dad (pretending not to know): "No. What is it?"

Adam: "A tick is a bird that can suck your butt!"

Dad: "I don't think that's quite right honey."

Adam: "But Ezra (another 4-year-old) said so!"

Mom: "Ezra isn't always right honey."

Dad: "A tick is a BUG that can suck your BLOOD."

[ACT I] From Creativity to Conditioning

I suppose Adam and Ezra weren't wrong about the butt part because I think a tick might actually end up sucking butt blood.

But it turns out dad (me) was wrong too. When geeking out online I discovered ticks are ARACHNIDS, 8-legged INSECTS not BUGS, which have wings.

Anyway, while ticks are Lyme disease-carrying gross looking parasites, what's important and even more impressive is two 4-year-olds showing interest and talking about ticks. Not that 4-year-olds don't talk about unexpected topics, they most definitely do. I just think it's pretty freaking cool that they are so curious and in their inquisitive nature come up with crazy creative definitions for things they are learning about and answers to problems they are working on solving.

And there becomes apparent the tragedy of today's schooling. In today's classrooms, many creative answers and solutions are nonexistent. Middle school and most definitely high school is no place for butt sucking tick birds. Such answers are no longer cute. They are ridiculed by the jury of peers and deemed ridiculous by judge teachers.

And so, most students stay safe. They do not venture guesses to questions in class for fear of being wrong. They don't take risks. Rather, they wait for someone else, most often the teacher, to give them the right answer.

And can you blame them?

All the tests they take comprise of only one right answer questions. Schools give grades based on these tests. Students use grades and classroom behaviors to sort the super nerds from the nerds from the average Joes from the not so smarts from the dumber-than-dirts. End result? Students are conditioned to get it right the first time or to stay invisible.

And that's just Act I of the play called school.

[Act II] Compliance and Efficiency: What Being a "Good" Student Means

Act II is a tragedy of incongruence between what and how schools of today teach and what is required to be successful now and in the future.

Just consider what it means to be a good student in a typical American high school.

The best students seem to be the ones who efficiently cram a lot of useless facts (and by useless I mean facts that aren't applied in real time), answer multiple choice questions about these facts effectively enough to receive good grades, and undoubtedly forget most of those facts and the details associated with them shortly after the "successful" assessment.

The best students then are ones who learn to play the get the best grades so I can get into a good college game well. This is unfortunate because true learning, learning that sticks and can be applied in multiple ways in future situations, does not happen.

And thus the Act II tragedy unfolds when such a student is asked to think creatively or innovate on his own. He is often incapable of original thought being programmed to perceive, think, and act with the mindless rigidity necessary for success in the too-slow-evolving rigid system that is today's formal education.

Of course, there are always exceptions, but all one needs to do to prove the above rule is to take a look at the legions of 9-to-5ers continuing to perform work they feel blah about in places they grew tired of long ago and with people they dislike or downright despise.

Like a caged animal, trapped.

[Act III] The American Dream Myth

A mortgage, 2 car payments, and bills to pay. This is what we call success. The American Dream. The Declaration of Independence guides us toward this dependence.

The American Dream is a myth that has lived in the minds of millions of Americans for generations. It is a well told and sold tale most of us buy into because we are repeatedly taught that if we suck it up and work hard we are in the right place to achieve it. But upon careful examination, we see just how rigid and constraining this belief is.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? As happiness is predefined for us as the American Dream it equates to being content with becoming a necessary and obedient cog that meshes with other such cogs to help the machine run smoothly.

Not convinced? Take work.

Exchange time for money. Use this money to buy a car. Exchange more time for more money. Buy a house. Exchange even more time for more money. Buy a boat, vacations, golf clubs, season tickets, college education, and other things we think we need.

The more time we trade for money, the more material goods and various services we can acquire, the stronger the economy, the engine that grows and consumes ever more fuel. Our formally educated, conditioned, and compliant sweat is the fuel. But someone else is driving. Never us. And, most of the time we don't even realize it.

We have grown accustomed to the accumulation of things and experiences. There's nothing wrong with that until the very purpose of work is to achieve the means to periodically escape the world of work, because it has little or no meaning, to this self-created world of accumulated things, which provides temporary relief but leaves us unfulfilled just the same.

Of course, there are always cogs that don't fit and don't want to fit. They project a different vision of how things could be; how they could be. They do things differently. They do things society has a hard time accepting. Looking for meaning they fail a lot.

We ridicule and call them weirdos at first. This is because they reject the society's myths. They don't buy into them. They keep failing. We keep laughing. But after they fail enough times they find their voice and place. Soon, we call them artists, innovators, and trendsetters. They become the engines of progress and they drive. In the meantime, we consume what they produce and stay the necessary unfulfilled cogs turning only to keep the status quo machine going.

Writing a New Play: How Do We Build More Engines?

Fact: We evolved to be keenly aware of our environment and highly creative in its utilization.

Fiction: We evolved to create societies that function based on shared values, beliefs, opinions, and ways of doing things.

Irony: As we abandoned the environment and way of life we are best equipped for by evolution for a chance to form societies we adopted shared myths (values, beliefs, opinions etc.) of how things are supposed to be, the blind following of which led to the destruction of most individualism and creativity.

Now, we find ourselves in a constant tug of war between what our instincts drive us to do (experimentation, creativity, individuality etc.) and what our society accepts (duty, sensibility, norm compliance etc.).

From the moment evolution gifted us with the consciousness that separates us from all other animals, our species has had limitless potential to invent and create. This special ability is exhibited by every child not spoiled by the rules, laws, and norms that define precisely what's allowed, what's unacceptable, and what's down right wrong.

From their inception schools have been factories designed to churn out new, rule following, product producing, and service providing members of the communities they serve and societies they're part of. Efficiency has always been the main focus. Saving time and money, predictability, and buy in. The smooth system operation requires indoctrination.

It's never perfect. Sometimes we complain. But it works.

It works because it conditions. Children learn to adopt certain unnatural from evolutionary perspective behaviors. They are standardized to fit the mold of a model citizen. They are taught how to "grow out" of unreasonable and unrealistic dreams. The machine has worked so well that many parents tell the same myths to their kids at dinner having been molded by the educational machine into a perfectly fitting cog of the corporate one.

But here's the thing. I don't know any 4-year-olds who dream about paying a mortgage. I don't know any 10-year-olds obsessed with buying a house either. This is how I know the American Dream is a myth acquired in our adulthood.

I have nothing against owning a house, 2 cars, and a goldfish. Those things are cool and taking care of Nemo makes some people happy. I simply disagree with calling it all the American Dream because every kid growing up has dreams and she should be allowed to keep and pursue them with all her might and help she deserves. Instead, we often discourage, devalue, or discount her imagination's creations and teach that a good paying job is life's ultimate purpose.

Imagine a 4-year-old obsessed with becoming an NBA star. But maybe he grows up to be an unathletic five foot eight. The society and its rules teach him to be sensible and responsible so he abandons the dream entirely and settles for being a lawyer. The problem with that approach is that he will most likely find little meaning in this risk mitigating choice of a profession. But let's be real here: he will probably hate it.

Why wasn’t this kid taught to use his imagination and look for ways to adopt this dream to his limitations and realities? Is it entirely out of the sphere of possibility that he could find a way to pursue something closely related he would be equally as happy doing for the rest of his life and feel fulfilled doing?

Maybe he could start a podcast interviewing basketball players or a website with unique content related to the NBA and NBA fandom. Those are just two ideas, but I bet with time and help and encouragement he could come up with a hundred.

But no. It's way more sensible to go to law school or pursue a STEM career. Nothing wrong with that, I just wish that more schools started equipping kids with skills to pursue their first passions, more teachers started empowering kids to take risks and fail and try again, and more parents started encouraging kids to escape the social pressures and influences and just go for it.

As things are now, we teach and condition kids to constantly second guess their choices. We only live once but life is not a one and done affair. Not even close! We can always start anew. Always. This is what we need to teach our kids.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

I hope this article inspires you to take s few small actions to help change the social and educational status quo for your students, your kids. A small disturbance is often all it takes to start an avalanche of progress.

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Life Reflections
tags / teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, entrepreneurship, success skills, skills for the future, skills

Why We Need to Teach Kids the "What’s Next?" Mindset

April 15, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

Photo by Jeff Sheldon on Unsplash — Photo by Jeff Sheldon on Unsplash

The Internet is the single most disruptive and creative force in the history of human kind. It changed our lives. While not the only things, digital products are things we buy now. Product consumption is undergoing a revolution. The nature of work will never be the same. The middle men are constantly being cut out. The innovation in how various services are provided has had an even greater impact on global society and economy.

Google is 19 years old and it's difficult to imagine life without it. 14-year old Facebook analyzes your behavior to provide you with a catered online experience. Amazon was formed 23 years ago and Apple has been around since 1976. There aren't many people in the world unaware of the Big 4.

And how about a few game-changing squirts who have yet to reach the ripe age of 10? 8-year-old Uber is valued at $40-70 billion. I recently rented a cabin in Wisconsin using the 9-year-old $30-billion hotel industry disruptor Airbnb. And even though it was acquired in its 5th year of existence by Unilever in 2016 for a cool billion, I still use the Dollar Shave Club razors to keep my melon clean and shiny.

Those are the heavy hitters many of us know but there are many other innovative companies and start-ups that have been changing the way business is done around the world. Some are being formed right now as I'm typing and as you're reading. At the same time the old guard is being replaced or is shaking in its boots as jobs and trends of yesteryear are disappearing.

The wiser elders are adopting. They are buying out and hiring the new blood, the creative competition, with hopes of using their mojo to stay relevant. It's not a mere transfusion. It's an infusion. They are acquiring the fountain of youth because times are a changin'.

Change Is the Only Constant

It's true. I wish I said it first but I can't take credit no matter how smart I want to seem. But there's more to it. Change is not just constantly happening. It's happening faster than ever before. It's speeding up. There are more changes too. This is today, not some distant future.

So why is it that school isn't adopting to the trends of the times? The digital revolution in the industry and daily life is not replicated in school. While use of technology in education is increasing the what of teaching is the same. It can be argued that the how of teaching is barely changing too. Hopefully initiatives such as project-based learning and genius hour follow the 80/20 principle and provide 80% of academic results as they are used only 20% of the time (or less) in most schools. But this begs at least a few questions: Are we wasting the other 80% of our kids' time learning useless things? and Are the concepts we teach using 20% time useful to our kids or just repackaged same old?

Parents and educators should be alarmed that schools rarely teach their kids how to find opportunities present in today's marketplace. For example, the business class in my high school teaches how to start a restaurant or retail business all the while the way most business is done today has already changed enough that it is far more transferrable to know how to create content, market, and make money online.

Change Brings Necessity & Opportunity

I know I have it backwards. Necessity Brings Change is the old, tried, and true cliche. I agree but think it's more of a cycle that's self-perpetuating. Just as a need for something calls for a change (a solution to a problem), the change itself will produce feedback we can use to improve that which already exists and feedback that allows us to see new needs. These needs will call for more changes. These changes will require... you get the point.

And no one knows exactly what the future will look like but we know it will be different. I, for one, believe that it will be necessary to continually anticipate the changes a person's industry might undergo to remain relevant or be able to adopt and learn new ways of doing things, new skills, and new knowledge quickly.

This isn't our grandparents' world. Job hopping is quickly becoming the new normal. Technology is always changing. Progress is accelerating. Reaction time is shortening. The answer lies in not just reacting to changes but anticipating them. Those who anticipate the changes and the needs will thrive. They won't just notice trends. They'll create them.

Remaining Relevant

Luckily, becoming a trendsetter is not a prerequisite of success. Remaining relevant is enough. As the very job and industry an individual is a part of changes she must become savvy at anticipating which way the progress is going and taking steps needed to keep up with it or stay ahead of it.

This requires a certain mindset. Resting on her laurels is no longer possible. After becoming qualified for a job in the first place, she will need to keep learning to stay qualified for the new version of the same job as it morphs into something perhaps diametrically different. As human demand and technology and everything else around that product or service keeps evolving, she will need to continue to learn to remain at the top of her game. Being good at something right now does not guarantee being adequate at it two years from now, because the technology and the understanding of this field will change drastically. This is the price of progress and our students will pay it if we don’t prepare them for it.

And it's not just about adopting to changes in professions. Anticipation of the brutal fact that his job might one day disappear prepares the individual for the fallout. Understanding and acceptance of this as status quo of future life will lead to constant drive to acquire relevant new knowledge and skills. Of course, knowing how to do it well i.e. having the right skills to acquire knowledge and skills will make or break an individual.

It's scary to think we are on the brink of a future in which just getting through school, getting a diploma, and getting a decent job will not be nearly enough. Just think about all of the kids you know who make it through the educational system without being able to read well enough or those who always wait for you to tell them what to do. If you care for them you must be weary. I know I am.

To bring this point home consider a situation in which you could no longer teach or do the job you're doing right now. Would you be anxious? Would it turn your world upside down? Would you be okay? What else can you do? What would you do?

Chances are you'd be stressed out. But chances also are that you know how to do many of the things I describe below and you'd be okay. Can the same be said of all your kids?

As jobs that require a lot of repetition and direction remain few, being able to learn effectively and efficiently, to problem solve, to generate new, innovative ideas, to test these ideas, and to keep doing it over and over will be a future necessity. No longer a bane of the scientists and philosophers, reinvention of self or the industry one works in will be paramount to remaining relevant. Otherwise, he or she will struggle to find employment or will be left performing one of the few remaining, mostly mundane and mindless jobs laws and regulations forbid automating.

Reinvention as a Skill

It goes without saying that a career that exists today might not exist tomorrow. But it’s perhaps more important to point out that schools still largely focus on preparing students for specific jobs; jobs that exist now. I don't know of any high school or college courses that embrace constant change and focus on teaching adaptation to it. However, courses and books that address this trend are produced by the industry thought leaders who experience it. One such book is Reinvent Yourself by James Altucher.

Altucher recognizes that being able to reinvent yourself requires certain thinking and behaviors. It's a skill that comprises of multiple micro skills one must acquire to be successful. There are real individuals who do it consistently and anyone can learn to do it.

And yet, education at large is stubbornly refusing to change and do the same. Why? Why not trust the people in the industry, the companies and the entrepreneurs who live and breathe this world of flux? Am I missing something here?!?!

And while it requires some know how, it's not that hard to teach the entrepreneurial mindset. Acquiring it will probably require letting go of a couple of centuries of academic and societal conditioning, but skills such as pattern recognition can be taught. In fact, being able to recognize patterns and predict trends is a competitive advantage as "future experts" claim it is one of the few things artificial intelligence has trouble doing. Turns out it's hard for robots to predict what humans want.

**Teaching the What’s Next? Mindset**

But humans can be trained to recognize patterns. Kids can be taught to analyze what innovators and entrepreneurs are doing in the fields they are interested in. They can study the thinking and the behaviors of past and present successful individuals. With practice, they can learn to identify the available opportunities and create their own.

Teaching the What's Next mindset will set our kids up for success. As schools begin to train students to have this outlook they will see the world for what it is - and really always has been - which is a world in constant flux, except now the change is faster than ever before. And it will get faster. This is why we need to do this. It’s no longer optional to leave it up to the scientists and thought leaders of the world to tell us what the changes will be.

We must show our students how to be the thought leaders and the pattern recognizes and the trendsetters themselves. We must encourage them to ask questions such as: What is impossible? Why is this impossible right now? What is stopping people from doing this? How can this become a possibility? How can I get involved in this? How can I innovate here? What does the future of this look like? What do people need now or might need soon? How can I be a player in these things?

These questions have one thing in common. We are not teaching our kids to ask them. We are not equipping them with the mindset and skills needed to look for answers to these questions either. Instead, we teach facts that live in books. But kids don't live in books. Past facts and characters do. Some are important. Some are outdated. Other things might be fictitious. But life is the realest thing there is.

Let's be real and teach real. Or else what’s the point?

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Thanks for reading! My hope is to inspire parents and educators to demand a better education for their kids. Consider signing up below to receive new teaching, learning, and skills-building articles and graphics as soon as I post them.

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Teaching, Parenting
tags / teaching teens, learning, teaching, future skills, entrepreneurship, mindset, success, success skills, creativity, innovation

Why We Need To Teach Kids Entrepreneurship

September 06, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

If you're a parent you want your kids to be successful.

I mean, I get that you should allow them to fail and learn from failure. I get that on the road to success, our kids will undoubtedly fail. If you preach and do that, you're awesome in my book.

So while we all want our kids to fail forward, no parent or teacher wants their kids to struggle to make a living. Each one of us, wants our kids to have the skills and the will to crush the challenges of life. But there's one thing that can stop them: School.

Or rather, schooling.

What's the difference?

Well... Schooling is the way school is done. I could talk about how it's outdated and designed for the Industrial Era, but here's the bottom line: Schools rarely teach entrepreneurship; the mindset that prompts an individual to constantly look for opportunities, and in response to opportunities, to ideate, to innovate, and to create.

Schools are about compliance; hitting the books in English, raising their hands in history, studying for math, being on time to gym, and washing their hands after science labs. Nothing wrong with these things. Except, they're not enough.

Kids are not taught entrepreneurship. Everybody is taught to fit in. That's important for societal survival, but kids must learn (or relearn) to stand out, if we want them to thrive.

I'm not talking business classes. Budgeting and finances are cool; knowing how to write a business plan and open a restaurant neat. But, by the very nature of today's market, very few will be able to thrive using the traditional brick and mortar shop model. While many products remain physical, a lot of the action happens in the virtual. And it's a good change.

The opportunity exists for everyone. Wielding technology and instant connection to the global market, anyone can start with zero money and a great idea. But, she needs to take this idea further. She needs to have the skills to develop it, spread it, and persuade others that it's a good one and that others should listen to her; the idea maker, the entrepreneur.

How does one start becoming an entrepreneur?

Learn. Generate ideas. Deliver value. Learn more. Generate more ideas. Deliver more value. Learn and generate ideas all the time and deliver so much value that they say: She knows something. She's got something. I like it and I want it. They say these things, because their life became better as a result.

But here's the thing. The learning has to be meaningful and real. It's good to start elementary kids blogging about school and the consistency of squirrel droppings to parents, peers, and teachers, but once they hit their teen years, it is time to get them to start building and talking to the global audience about real things.

Take writing. We already teach kids to respond to text and to write persuasive arguments. Problem is that most of the time, the task boils down to persuading one person; the teacher, or as I mentioned above a bunch of people they know well. They either like it or they don't. Done.

But what if students were given the opportunity and taught to persuade many people all the time? This is what many jobs already require and what being an entrepreneur calls for. Sure there are many nuances to entrepreneurship, but you can start with an authentic audience and a value proposition, a service or a product that helps people. And, both teachers and parents can teach entrepreneurship.

And guess what? As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the service/product piece is the easy part. Building audience, is what the grind is all about. There have been many people with great ideas unable to bring them to the market, because they struggled with or shunned building audience.

But guess what else? The economy NOW, not the one in some distant and uncertain future, requires pretty much everyone to be both a professional (doctor, lawyer, writer, mechanic, salesman etc.) and a marketer, a dealer of ideas and solutions; a vision.

And guess what else? It's not just that everyone can learn to be one... If we want our kids to stand out, innovate, and create, and we don't want them to struggle, we must help them become these visionaries. This is where we the teachers and we the parents come in.

Here’s how to start kids on their entrepreneurship journey

Introduce the idea of a "side hustle" to your kids (Mindset Development). Help your kids gain skills to be successful in a job, but if they have a passion for something and it seems unrealistic to pursue at the moment, help them pursue it anyway (that’s entrepreneurship!) by allowing them to develop a platform for this passion and the ideas it generates.
Show your kids examples of entrepreneurs (Social Proof). Examine the heavy hitters such as Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, and Marie Forleo and expose your kids to what they do. Contemporary businesses use multiple platforms, but yes, they all blog to spread their ideas.
Help your kids start a website and a blog (Platform/Building Audience). I recommend Wix, Yola, or WordPress, because they have modern themes and should the need arise for a beginner entrepreneur to go full-Pro (online store and other capabilities), she’ll be able to upgrade and not have to migrate her content somewhere else or start a website from scratch.
Teach kids to use social media with a bigger intention (Marketing). It’s fun to use goofy filters and look at videos for hours, but Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and other relevant social media can be better leveraged to connect to potential customers and to deliver value to them and market ideas to them.
Teach content creation (Value Proposition/Influence). You can teach you kids to “write copy,” the art of writing that persuades others to take action, using subject matter. For example, if a teen entrepreneur focuses on teaching leadership qualities to other teens, she can find and use a story of Mahatma Gandhi in her copy. Or, she could look up her site’s analytics and use this statistical data to persuade others to sign up for her newsletter. The learning possibilities are endless as new issues and questions will constantly emerge, calling for creative and effective solutions.

One last thing…

Marketing gets a bad rep, but it's a good word. Done right, marketing is not trying to sell something. Rather, it is a way to deliver so much value to others, that they appreciate the products and services you offer. Some time ago, I encountered an 18-year-old Irish entrepreneur by the name of James Corneille on Twitter. He followed me. Twice. As soon as I followed back, I received a direct message about his product. I promptly unfollowed him. Twice.

So what?, you are thinking. I didn't buy his stuff. I was slightly annoyed. But guess what? He is learning and has my admiration; if only for his persistence. I remember him and he earned a mention here. He might not have a blog, but he has built up a social media audience that is buying his product. Why can't your kids do something better? They can and you can teach them.

Teach them. You have the power to change the world. Use it often.

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Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Parenting
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, entrepreneurship, skills for the future, future ready, future skills