School change should lead to students who are passionate, inspired, and remarkable.

If you want a goal for school change how about this? How about we focus on the antonyms that describe our kids in school on a regular basis? I think that every child in their own way can be passionate, inspired, and remarkable …  just not in school. Over the last 10 years I’ve asked thousands the people , “it you ask high school kids to describe school in one word, what word would they choose?” The answer is always the same, bored! I’d also add from my observation that they are apathetic and encouraged to be ordinary.

So just for kicks I looked at the antonyms for passion, inspired, and remarkable. Here are the results …

Passionate – Apathetic
Inspired –  Bored
Remarkable – Ordinary

What really got me thinking about this was thinking about my six grandkids. Each of them is unique in their own way. There is nothing ordinary about any of them. But they are all very different. Yes, each of them is apathetic, board, and ordinary in some way. But then again we all are. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett or ordinary in some ways. Alex Rodriguez and Kobe Bryant are apathetic about some things. And when it comes to some subjects Barack Obama and John McCain are bored.

It seems to me that the job of schools should be to help inspire every student discover what they are passionate about in order to become remarkable. Now that would be real school change. –  Steve Wyckoff

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