| |
People will think and act by the way they are treated by authority.
 | Treat a person like an professional - through self-fulfilling
prophecy they will think and act like a professional. |
| Treat a person like a helper - through self-fulfilling prophecy they
will think and act like a helper. |
The education system is designed by intellectuals for intellectuals and
they consider non-intellectuals as having low ambition and intelligence.
Through self-fulfilling prophecy educators predictions are proven right. |
|
All teenagers have a burning desire to learn, be considered intelligent
and have ambitions of being an achiever. Classroom failure does not mean they lack
ambition, they need a different learning environment.
 |
Teenagers join gangs
because the education system has no alternatives for classroom failures.
Street gangs fulfill this natural desire while gaining social recognition
among their peers. Crime is the tool to achieve these goals. Our society
must offer alternatives!
|
|
There will always be highly intelligent teenagers that are in conflict
with classroom environments and/or cannot learn in competitive classroom
environments. Classroom performance is not a measurement of true capabilities.
|
|
|
All of us have different natural talents, intellectual, artist,
mechanical, to name some. For this reason, there needs to be alternative
learning environments to meet different natural talents. In the right learning
environment, anyone can excel.
|
For intellectuals, the academic base education system inspires a vision,
discovery of natural talent, opportunity to develop it, career guidance, and
job placement. The system does not provide the same opportunity for non-intellectuals.
|
|
Most high schools will not allow students with below grade "C" average to
take shop/vocational courses, an opportunity they could excel at. Self-fulfilling
prophecy proves the education system right, "anyone who does not comply
with our
policies will be a failure."
|
|
The education system does not
prepare students that are going into the job market out of high school. Their careers
are hit and miss.
|
|
|
In high school, placing intellectuals and non-intellectuals in the same
classroom does both groups a disservice. This is like having automobiles
compete with bicycles and expect the same performance. It will never happen.
If both are required to be at the finish line together, the automobile will
operate well below its capabilities. If not, the bicycle will be called a
failure. The bike has the ability to do things automobiles can't and vise
versa. The education system should recognize the various abilities and provide opportunity for uniqueness.
|
Teenagers that become failures are taught to be failures through
self-fulfilling prophecy. When teenagers are told they are a failure 5 times a
day, 5 days a week, for as long as they can remember, they believe it. Most
teenagers believe and accept the limits placed on them by authority.
|
|
For many failing students, the classroom is their enemy and/or prison from
which they feel there is no escape. Through self-fulfilling prophecy, they
become misfits who believe they are NOT wanted at home, in the classroom or by
fellow students. To them, there is not much difference
between a prison with bars and a classroom without bars, either place is a
reminder of not being wanted. With negative feelings
like this, there is no motivation to learn.
|
|
|
Education system's motivation tool is reward and punishment. Intellectuals
receive the rewards while non-intellectual are punished. Does this develop a
love to learn?
|
|
Non-intellectual people learn best with hands-on projects, learning by doing.
This can be achieved with opportunity to experience a verity of blue-collar
skills. Hands-on projects give students opportunity to
discover their natural talent.
|
In the blue-collar world, the ability to work with tools is a skill that
has value.
|
|
|
Ten days aboard a tall ship, at sea, gives inspiration needed to break
through self-imposed barriers. In 1963, at the age of 27, I helped crew a
36-foot sailboat from Hawaii to Los Angeles. That experience gave me the
ability to break through self-imposed barriers and carry out my teenage dream
of becoming a hard-hat diver, drift down the Amazon River on a raft, and sail
across the Pacific Ocean in a dugout canoe.
|
Teenagers use role models as a symbol of the person they want to be. They inspire a vision
of the person they want to be. This can be
constructive or self-destructive.
|
|
Leadership style and the ability to inspire a motivating vision is the key
to efficient programs.
|
|
High School Dropouts
South Carolina's teenagers are voting with their
feet - walking away from the education system.
Many of these teens are highly intelligent and
highly motivated. They want to learn and be somebody, but they reject the
classroom form of education.
On the street they are searching for ways to fulfill
these goals and they are influenced by their social life.
Their social life determines whether they live productive lives or serve
time in prison.
The education system must find ways to adapt to teens
interest instead of pressuring them to adapt to the system.
49% of South Carolina teenagers are sending a mandate
that drastic changes must be made.
|
|
