Stop Stealing Dreams

I read an amazing book yesterday.

I downloaded and read Seth Godin’s free book – Stop Stealing Dreams, and I highly recommend it to anyone who cares about education, children, or the future of our nation.

I’ve been an educator myself for more than twenty years and I’ve been incredibly frustrated by the nature of the way we do things. Early on in my career, when I taught high school full time, I was consistently frustrated by new high school students who had been trained, in my opinion, to only care about what they needed to do – not what we were going to learn. My speeches about the dangers of hyper-productivity and the importance of thinking and learning would surprise them at first, but almost every student I’ve ever had eventually took to the new attitude about learning. The rest usually dropped my class.

As a parent, I became even more frustrated. My children have been fortunate enough to have many excellent teachers, but even the good ones are teaching the wrong things. Day after day we watch as they are trained to to adapt behaviors and attitudes that will not help them live a fulfilled life. Terri and I find ourselves teaching the opposite lessons at home. We want our children to think for themselves and think critically. We are suspicious, at best, of conventional wisdom.

I always knew others were frustrated, but we seemed in the minority. A couple of years ago, I noticed a swelling movement. I started to read everything I could get my hands on about new trends in education. I started watching every video presentation and documentary film I could find about the subject. It is clear that there is a problem, and most of us care about solving it.

If you are frustrated about the current state of affairs and don’t know where to turn, this book is the best first step I can recommend.

Download it today, read it, and share it with everyone you know.