#educationchangestheworld #realthinking #everyonematters #buildyourreality #write4good #iam4

From the moment we are born, we begin to build our own realities based on what we experience, the way our minds work, and how we choose to make sense of it all. Every single thing we do has some effect on us, and over time the things that we are exposed to the most add up and become a huge part of who we are, whether we choose it or not. For every child in the United States, it begins with the way our parents take care of us, and when we reach a certain age we are sent off to school for society to shape our minds. The way our parents take care of us is influenced by the way their parents took care of them, which is influenced by school and the society that created it.

In some ways, school is a great thing. You get taught certain basics about the world that you need to know, there are lots of extracurricular options, and you get the chance to interact with other kids. Under the surface, however, school is killing our greatest potential. That is the truth, and it's time we faced it instead of going on with our lives because that's the way we've always gone on. What we are truly capable of as individuals is the most important thing colleges and workplaces should look at, but it gets overlooked almost every single time. Our worth is measured the minute our grades are glanced over, even though we all take the same classes and learn the same things. Seriously, how can you distinguish one person from another that way? Maybe you'd be able to tell how hard they work and how easily they can handle new class information, but you wouldn't be able to distinguish anyone's true intelligence. It's never what we are taught about the world, but the way it's taught to us. It's the frame we are given or create to view the world through.

With a world that changes faster than we can make sense of it, our school system needs to help us keep up. The way school helps to shape us has a huge impact on the way we shape the world in the future. It's time we got the tools to reshape our world with more interaction, inspiration, and intrinsic motivation, and it all starts in the classroom. In order for us to build real friendships in our lives, we need three I’s: interaction, inspiration, and intrinsic motivation. With more of this in our schools, we can start dramatically reducing the unemployment rate, the amount of drugs people take, depression, suicide, and dramatically increasing everyone’s passion for life and desire to contribute to the world.

The first “I” I would like to discuss is interaction. Strong connections are built when people really know each other, have fun together or have some things in common, feel they can trust each other, and feel like they can be themselves together. From what I have noticed in high school, this is not impossible, but it’s extremely rare. After a long day at school, I’m around people all day, and yet I’m still feeling so alone. To put it one way, we’re all drowning in a heatless sun.That’s because there are so many people for the teachers to teach that they don’t get many opportunities to really get to know everyone. It’s also extremely difficult to have quality conversations with classmates as well, because everyone’s in such a large group. With that, the complexities increase. It’s difficult to get a word in, it’s easy to misunderstand yourself and others, and it’s easy to feel like another face in the crowd. It’s very easy to judge and to feel judged. After a while, some find it difficult to care anymore, because they feel like no one really cares about them. Even if some people did care, they might build up walls and be afraid or unwilling to let anyone in, because they have been conditioned that nobody has time, they need to be tough and willing to fit in, and they will be judged harshly for it. It gets to the point where some people say they are horrible at making friends and would not want them anyway. The truth is, that’s what we all need. It’s impossible for every single person at school to find a true friend among their peers and teachers, but sometimes just knowing that someone cares about you and having fun talking to them can make the difference in your life. It can mean the difference between apathy and passion, motivation and not caring at all, cynicism and hope, and so much more. There should be time set aside during the day where students are doing their own projects or learning, and a teacher should come around and spend at least ten minutes with each student each day. The students should feel like the teachers actually care about them, rather than another face in the room to keep track of. Some kids also don’t have this kind of support at home, so seeing it at school could make all the difference for them in their lives. We all need to learn to take care of ourselves eventually, but having others to relate to can help us with this. If we expect others to care about and be a part of society, they have to feel like they’re a real part of it.

Inspiration is what drives everything we do. The more we grow up, the more our brains grow and the more we’re able to do. At the same time, the pressure, the deadlines, and the norms increase exponentially. During school, we’re forced to sit for eight hours each day and all learn the same things. On top of that, we have a mountain of homework, extracurricular activities, social lives, and more. Even if we wanted to create and explore things on our own later, the time has slipped away and even if people have it, they’re usually too worn out to learn or pursue anything on their own. It’s not impossible to do that, but it is extremely difficult. At the same time, it also seems to be discouraged. There’s the pressure of fitting in, and rather than being congratulated for trying something new, I hear people getting called a try-hard or a nerds. Also, the traditions people have are hard to break. Most social get-togethers I go to, consist of small talk, unless they're planned around a special event or activity. When I see little children interacting, I do see some small talk, but I also see them being more like themselves. I see them exploring and discussing funny things that interest them. Why can’t this go on for everyone for their whole lives? It can start with the way we’re taught. It’s not as important what you teach and do as it is what it means to you. There are some things we need to learn in class, but people also deserve the time to do projects that mean something to them. The way our system is set up makes lofty goals seem out of reach, since there is a lot of social pressure and pressure to make the grades. If we don’t get the right answers right away, we get a bad grade, and that’s the only chance we get. The truth is, it takes time to learn and understand anything, and just because it may take someone longer to learn something does not mean they won’t ever be talented at it. Plus, whenever we try something new, we will fail, and then we just try it again. School should be this way, too. If students really want to learn something, they will keep trying until they get it. If they’re not good at something, they should not fail. They should be given the chance to keep exploring and find something else that they are good at. The only real way to fail in school should be if you don’t try. In order to innovate and to choose what we wish to learn, we need to be given a frame. That means we should be taught about the current world issues, advances, career opportunities, cultures, and more. The more educated people are about the problems in the world, the more likely they’ll be solved. They say we need to learn the basics first, before we can do anything with them. In my opinion, that’s not true. I come up with my idea or what I want to learn first, and then I ask myself if I need to know any Algebra, or Physics, or anything, to make it work. We need to be inspired to do something with what we’re learning, not just to learn it only to forget it next year. If I’m going to the grocery store, I don’t memorize every hallway and item in the store, because that’s not all relevant to me. I make a list of what I need, and then I go find it. Life works this way as well. There is not enough time in the world to learn, do, and create everything we want, so we may as well start in school.

There is a lot of extrinsic motivation in school, but not enough intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation means you do something because you have to, or because you’ll get something for doing it. Intrinsic motivation means you decide to do something because you want to, and that’s how we get more of the creativity we all need. Something our school needs to teach is thinking outside of the box. As a class, the teacher could pose a question or a problem, and everyone has to think of a different way to solve it. If any two people have the same answer, they have to keep going until they come up with a different solution for each person. This problem could be something that’s going on in the world, different things people would invent if it were possible, or people could simply be given the chance to write about ways they could live differently in their everyday life. These activities or activities of a similar kind could inspire a myriad of ideas no one would have thought of otherwise. This will help them to figure out and and feel good about who they are better.

These are not just ideas I’m throwing out there. This is something that needs to happen within the next decade at least, and I know that almost everyone I know feels the same way. When I get a minute, I’m going to be working on a plan that can be put into practice for our new school system. If the whole plan does not work right away, maybe it’ll fall into place bits and pieces at a time, but it needs to happen. I don’t need to be the leader of this. What I’m going to need eventually is a LOT of people on my side willing to work, and if necessary, fight for these changes.