Learning as a Now-Next issue        

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How many kids (and adults) really love to go to school and can't wait to attend each and every one of their classes to see what they can learn next? Very few.

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In our Next's desire for our kids (or ourselves) to have a good future, we have created a system of learning that is antiquated, hard, and boring. We have focused almost exclusively on Next's concerns, while paying little attention to what our Now wants and needs. With Next dominating our approach to learning, we have lost touch with our natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. This has been (and continues to be) a disaster for both Now and Next.

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For myself

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Effectively, I didn't start to learn (about anything that was enjoyable or that counted) until after I quit college. Fortunately, I did not have the natural curiosity of "how life worked" drummed out of me as many of classmates did who were either "good students" or in rebellion against learning.

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My mother never required that I do my homework. She often repeated one of her favorite truisms, "children should have time to play." I played a lot. In school, I mostly made B's instead of A's, which I could have made if I had forced myself to do the homework and read the text books, which were mostly boring.

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Since I escaped from formal schooling at age 22, I have eagerly and enjoyably learned in every month more knowledge and skills that have contributed (and continue to contribute) to my life and the lives of others than I did in all my 15 years of schooling.

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"I never let schooling interfere with my education."

-Mark Twain

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"That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment

that you don’t notice that the time passes." 

-Albert Einstein

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In today's world formal schooling is more obsolete than ever

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Watch these short videos below to get a sense of what's possible for our kids and us in today's world. Let's allow and encourage (in ourselves and in others) to find their own teachers and their own ways of learning what fuels their natural passion.

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If you can't find a way to enjoy learning it, it's probably not worth learning.

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Watch these mind-opening videos