Half of America's top graduates do the same six jobs after graduation. The reason why is depressing.8/4/2014
There's a perceived formula to "success" in today's world. We've all heard it:
You work hard in middle school so you can get into a good high school. Then you work hard in high school to get the grades, leadership roles and volunteer hours required to get into a good college -- often with the help of private tutors and coaches. Then you go to college so you can take the right classes and do the right extracurriculars to get a "good job" that pays well. It absolutely takes intelligence and hard work to shine in this environment. But at the end of the day, our nation's best and brightest have spent their first 22 years following instructions and jumping through hoops. Which is probably why teenagers and young adults are more anxious and depressed than ever. And also why the majority -- literally, the majority -- of graduates from America's top schools do one of six things: finance, consulting, law, medicine, Teach for America or grad school.
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Last week, William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, published a controversial piece in The New Republic. Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League basically claims that kids who go to top schools get turned into zombies.
He's right, a little. There are definitely kids at top-tier schools who are intense, hard-working memorizers, but pretty poor problem solvers. The problem is, Deresiewicz taught at an Ivy for many years, so these are the exact sorts of kids he was likely to interact with most. You know -- the self-selecting group that only cares about getting the A. The ones who hound TA's about what questions will and won't be on the exam. Who are more focused on performance than learning. The real inventors, innovators and creators at Ivy League schools are often too busy for office hours. They're too busy for the A. They're off exploring the world around them -- and identifying important energy, infrastructure and social problems along the way. They're turning the project they did for last semester's engineering class into a company. They're leading their volleyball or dance or debate or whatever-they're-passionate-about team to a national championship. Or playing in a rock show. Or taking advantage of one of the thousands of non-classroom opportunities available to them at a prestigious and well-endowed school. Deresiewicz's strongest point is that fewer and fewer kids who make it to the Ivies think this way. But here's what he got wrong: Good schools don't turn kids into zombies. Bad parents do. The best way to give your child a creative, entrepreneurial mind (hint: you won't need flashcards)6/25/2014 I originally posted this as an answer to the question, How can I develop my child's curiosity? on Quora. When I'm around kids, I ask them questions all the time. The point is to make them wonder, to help them think critically. A lot of adults like to tell or teach kids things. In fact, I'll often ask a child a question, and a nearby adult will answer for/to the child. But I think it's better to ask, hypothesize and explore -- especially in response to a child's own question. For example: Child: "How do I draw a dog?" Adult: "That's a really great question, [child's name]! Where do you think we should start? What's the first part of the dog we should draw? Then what? Want to try it? We can always try again if we mess up." |
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