| There are many reasons why young people turn to | | | | disengaged and feel less than. As early as |
| drugs. This is but one reason but I think an important | | | | kindergarten kids are sorted into those who can and |
| one. I am saddened by how in this country education | | | | those who can't. The kids sense the sorting and drift |
| continues to be a place to sort children rather than a | | | | towards those in their respective groups. Those who |
| place where they come to know who they truly are. | | | | can't begin a slow but steady disengagement from |
| I'm frustrated by how public education tends to | | | | school. |
| focus on sameness and content versus uniqueness | | | | Neither group is well served by this process. Neither |
| and meaning. I'm disappointed that youngsters in | | | | has a true sense of whom they are and what it |
| school learn to compete with each other rather than | | | | means to belong to their community and to the |
| learning to reach out to one another. | | | | community of man. Classrooms are sorting tools |
| One question I hear over and over again from | | | | rather than places where young people learn how |
| teenagers is "why won't anyone listen to what I | | | | relate with themselves and others and begin to |
| want?" The sorting machine drives young people | | | | explore their place in the universe. |
| down the path to college and professions exposing | | | | How many adults do you know who, after working |
| them to intense competition and very little time to | | | | their behinds off for years, wake up one day only to |
| learn or reflect upon what it means to simply be a | | | | find that they have lost a part of their lives. How |
| human being rather than a "success". | | | | many begin the desperate search for meaning and |
| Education periodically swings back and forth between | | | | true intimacy in their lives? How many have, during |
| a focus on a more humanistic experiential curriculum | | | | the course of their drive for success, turned to |
| and a content-based basics approach. Why there is | | | | alcohol and drugs as a replacement for meaning? All |
| not room for both I'll never understand. It's been | | | | too often the alcohol and drugs begin long before the |
| quite some time since K12 focused on feelings and | | | | awareness that what they're trying to do is to fill the |
| humaneness and today the focus is more and more | | | | hole in their hearts that has been dug while their |
| on feeding kids facts. | | | | heads were being filled with facts. |
| Those that are best at retaining and regurgitating are | | | | Here's to learning who we are and what our unique |
| successful. Those who are not fall behind, become | | | | purpose is for being on this planet. |