Happy Freakin’ Friday!
It’s time again for my weekly chat with you with the subject that I’m thinking about – and believe you might want to think about as well. (And as you can see, today a little later than normal. I was working on a new video project and it felt like the whole week evaporated on me.) What I’m thinking about now is the education system.
It’s simply shocking and unconscionable how poorly the education system prepares young people for the real world. Not just that, but missing out on the single most important skill any school should teach: How to think.
Because no one is born knowing how to think constructively. It is a skill that must be developed. Our education system right now programs people what to think instead of how to think. Pretty much the entire brain trust who run the system seem to believe that education and learning is about memorizing facts.
The most important skills for learning are:
- Curiosity
- Discipline
- Discernment
Let’s look at each of them…
Curiosity drives us to knowledge. The most intellectually developed people are the most curious. If you want to grow and develop, you must maintain your child-like curiosity about the world around you. Just being curious is not enough, however. You also need the second trait we mentioned…
Discipline. Because casual curiosity will leads you to investigate things that have surface interest for you. That’s a good thing, because it ignites the spark of learning. But learning of real substance requires discipline. Meaning that it will require you to go deeper, study things that don’t seem as intriguing at first. Things that truly cause you to think. But just being exposed to enlightening material is not enough. You must employ the third trait from the list…
Discernment. And what a lost art this is today. We have so many people with worthiness and self-esteem issues that they are desperately looking for people to tell them what to think. As I wrote about in Radical Rebirth, there is a real world matrix created by the computer algorithms and machine learning employed by marketers, governments, conventional media and social media. You’re being tracked 24/7, including every online search you perform, what you buy, every website you visit, your social media posts, the things you ask your voice assistants, the apps running in the background on your phone, and what you stream for entertainment. Then this data is exploited to manipulate your habits, moods, identity, beliefs, and behaviors. The objectives are to make you feel powerless, needy, and helpless – and drive you to take self-destructive actions that reward those same marketers, governments, conventional media and social media.
We had another mass murder school shooting in the U.S. this week. One of the worst yet. As usual, there are thoughts and prayers, gnashing of teeth, and bitter debate over what should be done with this insanity that is a unique American situation. But as I watch the back and forth, I’m appalled at how futile the actual debate is. The two sides are talking past each other, reciting their preprogrammed talking points, trying to score wins on social media. It actually seems like they are speaking two different languages. No evidence is being considered, no critical thinking is being done, and no minds are being changed. (The same way they discuss vaccines, mask mandates, gender issues, climate change, critical race theory, and every issue of the day.)
I hope you can do better. When you are exposed to new information, you must process it first, through your powers of discernment. I would define this as having the ability to form opinions by distinguishing and objectively evaluating the information presented to you. This ability is what allows you to make good judgments. But that doesn’t happen if you blindly accept all the information presented to you. Intelligent people realize everything presented to them (including this newsletter) comes shaded with some bias. Please do some serious reflection and evaluate how you stack up in each of these three areas. Are you strong in the stuff they teach in college, but needing work on the stuff that really matters? In the areas you are weaker in, what steps can you take now to get stronger in those areas?
ICYMI…
New blog post: The Prosperity Rite of Passage
New on the Podcast: Winners Play Hurt
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Thought of the Day: Don’t just make the best of your suffering. Allow your suffering to make the best of you.
Peace,
- RG
P.S. Four days and nights of brainstorming, masterminding, and plotting global domination. You coming? TRIBAL
Prosperity TV
Randy, what a crucial topic you raise with DISCERNMENT!. It takes years to develop this (and we should be pursuing life-long learning on it both experientially and with books and programs and even coaching). It would be ideal for the foundation to be laid at school. I wonder if ANY schools do this. Discernment is tricky to teach and are teachers even qualified to do so? Who would develop the curriculum? Would districts or school boards authorize/approve it? Unfortunately, this might only be practically possible in private schools who have more local control. Definitely makes you go HMMMMMMM. Thank you for the post.
You're right about the politics of school systems. If we can teach kids lateral and critical thinking skills, they will be able to evaluate input much better and discernment will advance some.
Well, the best way to change education is to set up your own University, Mr. Cage:))! It will save you time, efforts, and stubbornness on the part of the professors.
I am.following Your art and evolution of Prosperity mindset already for 6-7 years
With great interest
Igor Grigorev, MBA
http://www.nationwideequipment.com
St.Petersburg, Russia
I actually proposed such a concept in my "Mad Genius" book.