Motivational Education Quotes

Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.

I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

Life is like a game of chess. To win you have to make a move. Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are acculated along the way. We become each and every piece within the game called life!

Life is like a sandwich! Birth as one slice, and death as the other. What you put in-between the slices is up to you. Is your sandwich tasty or sour? Allan Rufus.org

It’s hard to believe there are people that don’t read books. There’s so much magic in words and well told stories.

Get immersed in the beauty that surrounds you. No filters, edits, or adjustments. Experience the colors, sounds, textures and smells within your reach. Live.

Sustain joy by anchoring yourself with gratitude.

If reading makes you happy, do it. Whatever makes your heart sing and brings you joy, do that too.

Remember to celebrate the small accomplishments along your journey because they will provide the support needed when the road gets rocky. 

To merge on the road you are meant to travel, means making a choice and then taking action.

Today is the day you choose to find joy, fulfillment and the path that will make your heart sing. It's your choice, never lose sight of that.

Imagination is not bound by possibilities. The creative mind will always break the shackles—making the impossible, possible.

Blessings! Count them and be thankful. Ask for an abundance of them and accept with gratitude.

Inspiration ignites the spark of magic. Creativity is magic.

The elements of the written word can be purely magical. I read and I write...I inspire and I’m living.

Keep writing, dreaming and creating. There are no boundaries to your imagination. Writers are gifts to the world.

Writers create impressions that inspire, stir emotions, evoke questions and sprinkle seeds of awe.

It’s not just the big moments that count, it’s all of the small actions that feed our heart and soul on a daily basis. Cherish those moments and reflect on how to replicate them often.

Writers have influenced thoughts, principals, viewpoints and experiences throughout history. A talented writer’s pen is anointed with magic!

Life’s too short to walk around with your arms crossed and bottom lip poked out. Find a way to smile for yourself even if it’s as simple as licking the spoon clean or putting clean sheets on your bed.

If you are on social media, and you are not learning, not laughing, not being inspired or not networking, then you are using it wrong.

Life is complicated. If life was simple, wouldn’t that make us simpletons?

Hard work does not go unnoticed, and someday the rewards will follow

The issue of reimbursement by payers is an important factor that should be discussed. Is it possible that if radiologists use AI to read scans, they’ll receive less reimbursement? Or to approach this from the other angle, if payers are reimbursing for the use of AI, will they pay radiologists less as a result? My discussions with insurance executives have shown that they don’t think this is likely. If the use of these technologies will improve patient outcomes and lead to fewer errors, there are benefits to them that will motivate executives to pay for them in addition to radiologists’ reading fees.

Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won't mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.

Unless we take that first step into the unknown, we will never know our own potential!

Act as if it was, and it will be.

The most incredible architecture Is the architecture of Self, which is ever changing, evolving, revolving and has unlimited beauty and light inside which radiates outwards for everyone to see and feel. With every in breathe you are adding to your life and every out breathe you are releasing what is not contributing to your life. Every breathe is a re-birth.

Note and Quote to Self – What you think, say and do! Your life mainly consists of 3 things! What you think, What you say and What you do! So always be very conscious of what you are co-creating!

You start to live when you commit your life to cause higher than yourself. You must learn to depend on divine power for the fulfillment of a higher calling.

NOTE TO SELF – BOOMERANG EFFECT My words, thoughts and deeds have a boomerang effect. So be-careful what you send out!

the worst thing said about him is that he was "uncurious.

When you imagine, anything is possible.

Do you know where your breakthrough begins? Your breakthrough begins where your excuses ends.

The possibility of the dream gives strength.

Quotes and notes to self – Find your inner peace! Don’t be caught up in your outer world. Pay greater attention to your inner world

The deepness of your mind produces the thickness of your thoughts.

Enlightenment is the Goal - Love is the Game - Taking steps are the rules! - Allan Rufus

Formal education and current position can define your worthiness. What makes you extraordinary is defined by your attitude towards others.

Note to Self – Thoughts design my energy! My thoughts WILL design the energy that moves me!

Tweet others the way you want to be tweeted.

When the point of education becomes the production of credentials rather than the cultivation of knowledge, it forfeits the motive recognized by Aristotle: "All human beings by nature desire to know.

Freedom of Speech doesn't justify online bullying. Words have power, be careful how you use them.

5 Ways To Build Your Brand on Social Media: 1 Post content that add value 2 Spread positivity 3 Create steady stream of info 4 Make an impact 5 Be yourself

It is great to do what you love but greater with the great team.

Don’t do it! Don’t you dare think about giving up! EVERYTHING has a process. Work with the process, not against it. Move forward with purpose and never stop believing. You can do this! You know you can.

It is hard not to feel that there must be something very wrong with much of what we do in school, if we feel the need to worry so much about what many people call 'motivation'. A child has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing.

The victory over our inner self is a daily struggle. Be strong and do not give up.

Passion lights the fire in every soul.

You have to prepare physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to conquer any mountain.

Don't promote negativity online and expect people to treat you with positivity in person.

In the moment of decision, may you hear the voice of the Creator saying, ‘This is right road, travel on it.

Like the ancients I leave no trace but the imprint of kindness, left on the souls I’ve dared to love.

For self-educated scientists and thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Leonardo-da-Vinci, Michael Faraday, myself and many others, education is a relentless voyage of discovery. To us education is an everlasting quest for knowledge and wisdom.

Your words control your life, your progress, your results, even your mental and physical health. You cannot talk like a failure and expect to be successful.

I've been wondering if in fact ideal platonic love isn't just an intensely concentrated form of what inspires the best teachers.

If you are in a position where you can reach people, then use your platform to stand up for a cause. HINT: social media is a platform.

We can only reach the highest height, if we encourage each other.

My priority is not about grades. I seek yearn for knowledge, skills and wisdom.

If you are willing to be a self-learner, you will develop yourself.

When people support you when you have done something wrong. It doesnt mean you are right, but it means those people are promoting their hate , bad behavior or living their bad lives through you.

I wish you all an ego free driven day!

It is your own will to understand things, that makes you sensible.Education is just a fair chance.

Life gives us experiences for personal development. Appreciate the lessons and be a learner.

If you’ve got a dozen pitchers, you need to speak 12 different languages.

Never seek to please anyone. Seek to evolve thyself.

We must never forget our teachers, our lecturers and our mentors. In their individual capacities have contributed to our academic, professional and personal development.

Everyone at some point in life have faced rejection and failure, it is part of the process to self realisation.

We must never forget our teachers and our lecturers. In their individual capacities have contributed to our academic, professional and personal development.

You may encounter many disappointments. Be strong. Tell yourself, “I am good enough, I will try again.

Every once in a while you need to challenge yourself and learn new things.

Adversity quickens the mind, awakens the spirit and strength the soul.

Have and show motivation to do and learn. That's the key for a good career. Everything else is an extrapolation of that.

Endurance precedes success.

Life is hope. Hope is faith. Faith is believe. Believe is possibilities. Possibility is miraculous. Miraculous is divine. Divine is supernatural. Supernatural is spiritual.

If you treat your mind like a trash can, don't be surprised when you reach for a thought and all you get is garbage.

Self-education is open to all but it is taken only by those who refuse to live a small and purposeless life.

You can use the stumbling blocks to build your success.

There is a miracle in your mess, don't let the mess make you miss the miracle.

The greatest Emotion is Love. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest gift is your own Life. The greatest pleasure is CHOCOLATE! The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is that there's always something new to learn. The greatest virtue is temperance. The greatest meditation is a peaceful mind. The greatest practice is to be Kind. education. The greatest challenge is to let go. The greatest wisdom is to be in the NOW

Only the foolish would think that wisdom is something to keep locked in a drawer. Only the fearful would feel empowerment is something best kept to oneself, or the few, and not shared with all.

Challenges are part of life; We weaken our spirit, when we act in fear and lose hope. But we strengthen our spirit, when we fearlessly with faith and hope, rise up to meet and conquer the challenges.

To be a good professional engineer, always start to study late for exams. Because it teaches you how to manage time and tackle emergencies.

Not only should we encourage kids to daydream, but also to jump-in and build those dreams. Dreaming is largely lost among adults drowning in self-imposed realities.

Quoting an experienced school counselor: "You can't change a bully into a flower child, but you can change him into a knight.

Quotes and notes to self- Divine and Unique Power Find out what my Individual Divine and Unique Power IS and offer it outwards in harmony with all life!

With great enthusiasm and determination you will master the art in your field.

Adversity tests the limit of our strength.

Read to find life treasures

The world needs great inspires, who will encourage every living soul to reach their highest potential. You can be one.

If you have life and good health, you have the greatest blessings.

With positive attitude, you can graciously overcome every adversity.

Make plans for your new goals. And press towards achieving the goals with all your strength.

Perseverance, endurance and patience are the three greatest survival skills.

I travel to the ancient world by reading ancient books.

Mistakes are experiences. Without these experiences, there is no learning.

My books, my paradise!

To lovers there. Most ladies the reason they are dumped and their relationship doesn't last is they made themselves to become a want than a need in a relationship.

My priority is not about grades. I yearn for knowledge, skills and wisdom.

YOU ARE JUST You are not just for the right or left, but for what is right over the wrong. You are not just rich or poor, but always wealthy in the mind and heart. You are not perfect, but flawed. You are flawed, but you are just. You may just be conscious human, but you are also a magnificent reflection of God.

Your traditional EDUCATION is not going to CHANGE your life but the life you are experiencing that can change you. Choose a POSITIVE life STYLE with positive ATTITUDE which could bring you a life with HAPPINESS and WISDOM

Schooling that children are forced to endure—in which the subject matter is imposed by others and the “learning” is motivated by extrinsic rewards and punishments rather than by the children’s true interests—turns learning from a joyful activity into a chore, to be avoided whenever possible. Coercive schooling, which tragically is the norm in our society, suppresses curiosity and overrides children’s natural ways of learning. It also promotes anxiety, depression and feelings of helplessness that all too often reach pathological levels.

I would argue that it is not human fecundity that is overcrowding the world so much as the technological multipliers of the power of individual humans. The worst disease of the world now is probably the ideology of technological heroism, according to which more and more people willingly cause large-scale effects that they do not see and that they cannot control. This is the ideology of the professional class of the industrial nations—a class whose allegiance to communities and places has been dissolved by their economic motives and by their educations. These are people who will go anywhere and jeopardize anything in order to assure the success of their careers.

You've never heard of bagpipes?" Cody asked, sounding aghast. "They're as Scottish as kilts and red armpit hair!" "Um . . . yuck?" I said. "That's it." Cody said. "Steelheart has to fall so we can get back to educating children properly. This is an offense against the dignity of my motherland." "Great," Prof said. "I'm glad we now have proper motivation.

The more thou search, the more thou shall marvel.

How could we love books more than money? This is the state of book lovers.

If we throw blankets over our children's dreams, we darken their world and extinguish their desire to live.

Uniform of a soldier and uniform of a student both are equally needed for the nation.

You have to conquer every obstacle, before you can reach the top of the mountain.

Positive mindset, positive lifestyle.

Great achievement requires personal force, determined spirit and self-confidence.

Failure is a sign post, directing the right road for life’s journey.

Gracious words refresh, restore and revive the soul.

Be content with what you have. You have enough to live happy life.

The greatest riches are life and good health.

Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury but a necessity for employment.

Success is not the result of making one good choice, of taking one step. Real success requires step, after step, after step, after step. It requires choice after choice, it demands life-long education and passion and commitment and persistence and hunger and patience.

Never justify someones wrong action, without them apologizing first & admitting their wrongs. If you do. You are not making them better, but you are making them worse on the bad things they do.

There are those whose views about religion are not very different from my own, but who nevertheless feel that we should try to damp down the conflict, that we should compromise it. … I respect their views and I understand their motives, and I don't condemn them, but I'm not having it. To me, the conflict between science and religion is more important than these issues of science education or even environmentalism. I think the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief; and anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization.

Think before you click. If people do not know you personally and if they cannot see you as you type, what you post online can be taken out of context if you are not careful in the way your message is delivered.

‎A careful reading of the Old and New Testaments shows that idolatry is nothing like the crude picture that springs to mind of a sculpture in some distant country. The idea is highly sophisticated, drawing together the complexities of motivation in individual psychology, the social environment, and also the unseen world. Idols are not just on pagan altars, but in well-educated human hearts and minds

Desire is the key to motivation, but determination, commitment, and actions are the keys to success.

You may not have connections, or an education, or wealth, but with enough passion and sweat, you can make anything happen.

Nobody knows what you learned but people comes to know about it through your actions

Change is a contact sport.

Between natural ability and education choose natural ability, as it will keep you happy and will fetch you the glory sooner.

Education is one of the greatest gift for mankind. Each one of us must seek this enlightenment.

We are all capable of being great dreamers. We must awaken the divinity within us.

God holds the right key to every door.

The obstacles were intended to be a distraction from the goal. You must keep a persistence focus to realise the goal.

There is no need for comparison. Be happy with yourself and find satisfaction in your work.

Life is a teacher. We are the student.

You must resist negative thoughts, negative criticism and negative influences.

With a decision and a defined purpose, you can begin work.

There are so many books to read. What a paradise!

Everyone must be given the opportunity to think, read and write.

Be careful because God's gifts alone are not able to give you joy; God's gift can only bring you joy when they are joined with your gratitude.

All the failures in my life freed me from all my fears so that I can succeed.

Passion for knowledge, motivation for continuous learning.

If one million of you give assent to the one thousand who participate in the murder of a child, then one million of you are a million times guilty.

A teacher will be frustrated if she is only motivated to teach what she has learned. Yet, if she is motivated because of the students, then she will learn from them how to teach.

You are worthy of a great life. Desire, dream and seek it.

You will find the reality of life by reading.

Self determination is greatest will power.

Lover of books, lover of knowledge.

When you encounter unexpected situation, don’t panic. Close our eyes, take a deep breath and pray. It will relief you of any anxiety.

Encouragement is a fire of flame. It refreshes the soul and revives the spirit.

Keep on desiring. Keep on seeking.

Blessed is the person who desired to read the Holy Scriptures. It’s brings great reward to those who believe, trust and obey the Holy instructions.

Lazy people do a little work and think they should be winning. Winners work as hard as possible and still worry that they are being lazy.

I dont celebrate any friendship that was build on hate, because we share the common enemy.

No matter how knowledgeable you are, respect your parents for their experience and your children for their curiosity.

I was five, ice cream was my only motivation for wanting power anyway,

Neither formal education, desire, hard work, nor being a good person guarantees success... the most important key to success is self-motivation. And a consciously chosen vision of the future is a powerful aid to motivate yourself.

It's tough to get out of one's inherited imbecilic culture, and a thus inherited or endowed lunatic belief system. A freethinker must overcome every deadened system. Especially one's own.

Education is the system that’s supposed to develop our natural abilities and enable us to make our way in the world. Instead, it is stifling the individual talents and abilities of too many students and killing their motivation to learn. There’s a huge irony in the middle of all of this.

In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I’d put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life.

Guru yang baik bagaikan petani. Mereka menyiapkan bahan dan lahan belajar di kelas, memelihara bibit penerus bangsa, menyirami mereka dengan ilmu, dan memupuk jiwa mereka dengan karakter yang luhur. Guru yang ikhlas adalah petani yang mencetak peradaban.

The only way to prepare for social life is to engage in social life. To form habits of social usefulness and serviceableness apart from any direct social need and motive, apart from any existing social situation, is, to the letter, teaching the child to swim by going through motions outside of the water.

Charles Francis Adams was singular for mental poise — absence of self-assertion or self-consciousness — the faculty of standing apart without seeming aware that he was alone — a balance of mind and temper that neither challenged nor avoided notice, nor admitted question of superiority or inferiority, of jealousy, of personal motives, from any source, even under great pressure.

Thus if we know a child has had sufficient opportunity to observe and acquire a behavioral sequence, and we know he is physically capable of performing the act but does not do so, then it is reasonable to assume that it is motivation which is lacking. The appropriate countermeasure then involves increasing the subjective value of the desired act relative to any competing response tendencies he might have, rather than having the model senselessly repeat an already redundant sequence of behavior.

For I have nothing to lean on, nowhere to call my home and there is nowhere I will go for Christmas to rest my head and touch familiar walls. I have no degree to show on paper or employment to take care of my health or the reassurance that I can pay my rent. And I have no right to complain because this is the road I choose and I built it myself, not really knowing where I wanted it to lead, but I have hope in all things ahead and behind and I am learning to let myself go. Forget my own ego and believe that what I am doing is grander than my very own self.

Sometimes what not to do is more important than what to do. Sometimes when you are in crisis, when frustration are high or when you are under pressure, what you don't do is more important than what you do. Don't be afraid. ....

The real flight of this hawk is impending. Still,this bird is yet to be tested for real. Though I have leaped over the seas, well,the entire sky is still remaining to fly. And make sure that ,i am gonna do it with all my heart and all my soul. #loveyoourlife #liveyourlife #hvFUN

The motive for metaphor ... is a desire to associate, and finally to identify, the human mind with what goes on outside it, because the only genuine joy you can have is in those rare moments when you feel that although we may know in part, as Paul says, we are also a part of what we know.

Push beyond your limits and surpass your own expectations.

Don't fall asleep in classes. It's such a lucky thing you have, to be taught and to be learning and not have to be working in a shop somewhere.

Adversities are the best teacher and challenges are the best motivator.

Fear is there. It's the strongest motivator. Don't allow it to paralyze you.

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans – anything except reason.

Take school, for instance. We say that the function of school is to teach valuable skills and knowledge. Yet students don't remember most of what they're taught, and most of what they do remember isn't very useful... Again, something doesn't add up.

When it comes to the education of our young, this privilege should only be given to those whose visions are solely in the uplifting benefit of the child. There is no room for the ego in the education of children! Children should not be looked after, nor educated, by those who have not made a sacrifice within their hearts, laying down their own personal agenda and dreams, for the total ascension of the child. Even if you are to educate the children simply sitting under a tree; if you have the vision and the heart of a sage, those children will grow to be mighty men and women under your watch! And even if you wine and dine the children, putting them up in a palace; if you do not have the vision and the selfless heart of a sage, all you do is in utter vanity!

We learn best when we care about what we are doing, when we have choices. We learn best when the work has meaning to us, when it matters. We learn best when we are using our hands and our minds.We learn best when the work we are doing is real and relevant.

Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education. Schools that expect nothing more of their students than mastery of basic skills will not produce graduates who are ready for college or the modern workplace. *** Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested... *** Our schools will not improve if we continue to close neighborhood schools in the name of reform. Neighborhood schools are often the anchors of their communities, a steady presence that helps to cement the bond of community among neighbors. *** Our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools. *** Our schools will not improve if we continue to drive away experienced principals and replace them with neophytes who have taken a leadership training course but have little or no experience as teachers. *** Our schools cannot be improved if we ignore the disadvantages associated with poverty that affect children's ability to learn. Children who have grown up in poverty need extra resources, including preschool and medical care.

The assault on education began more than a century ago by industrialists and capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie. In 1891, Carnegie congratulated the graduates of the Pierce College of Business for being “fully occupied in obtaining a knowledge of shorthand and typewriting” rather than wasting time “upon dead languages.” The industrialist Richard Teller Crane was even more pointed in his 1911 dismissal of what humanists call the “life of the mind.” No one who has “a taste for literature has a right to be happy” because “the only men entitled to happiness… is those who are useful.” The arrival of industrialists on university boards of trustees began as early as the 1870s and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business offered the first academic credential in business administration in 1881. The capitalists, from the start, complained that universities were unprofitable. These early twentieth century capitalists, like heads of investment houses and hedge-fund managers, were, as Donoghue writes “motivated by an ethically based anti-intellectualism that transcended interest in the financial bottom line. Their distrust of the ideal of intellectual inquiry for its own sake, led them to insist that if universities were to be preserved at all, they must operate on a different set of principles from those governing the liberal arts.

imitation of notable models as an effective spring of learning; was the most ancient and effective motivation to learn—to become like someone admirable—put to death deliberately by institutional pedagogy.

Her widowed mother owns the shop on rue de Grenelle. Should her mother die, despite her expertise, Pauline Léon will not inherit the shop. She can only do so through a husband. As she has not yet met a suitable spouse, we can only imagine the kind of chocolat he would make if he were a wig maker.

Gen. Matthew Ridgeway "intended not to impose his will on his men, but to allow the men under him to find something in themselves that would make them more confident, more purposeful fighting men. It was their confidence in themselves that would make them fight well, he believed, not so much their belief in him. His job was to keep them to find that quality in themselves.

Anything you think of doing, however insignificant, should be done immediately. Spur yourself on and carry it through without becoming discouraged. If this becomes an ingrained habit, things you thought were impossible will become possible, and closed doors will open, as you will discover in many ways.

Be confident. Be successful. Be beautiful. Be intelligent. Be hard working. Be carefree. Be modest. Be driven. Be forgiving. Be creative. Be relaxed. Be motivated. Be educated. Be thoughtful. Be kind. Be determined. Be good. Just be you!

I didn't want to be educated. It wasn't the right time of my life for concentration, it really wasn't. The spirit of the age among the people I knew manifested itself as general drift and idleness. We didn't want money. What for? We could get by, living off parents, friends or the State And if we were going to be bored, and we were usually bored, rarely being self-motivated, we could at least be bored on our own terms, lying smashed on mattresses in ruined houses rather than working in the machine. I didn't want to work in a place where I couldn't wear my fur coat.

[Young] adults who take gap years tended to be less motivated than their peers before the gap year. But after their gap year, most of them find new motivation. They had higher performance outcomes, career choice formation, improved employability, and a variety of life skills. The gap year can be seen as an educational process in which skills and critical reflection contribute to an individual's development.

Children have an elemental hunger for knowledge and understanding, for mental food and stimulation. They do not need to be told or “motivated” to explore or play, for play, like all creative or proto-creative activities, is deeply pleasurable in itself. Both the innovative and the imitative impulses come together in pretend play, often using toys or dolls or miniature replicas of real-world objects to act out new scenarios or rehearse and replay old ones. Children are drawn to narrative, not only soliciting and enjoying stories from others, but creating them themselves. Storytelling and mythmaking are primary human activities, a fundamental way of making sense of our world. Intelligence, imagination, talent, and creativity will get nowhere without a basis of knowledge and skills, and for this education must be sufficiently structured and focused. But an education too rigid, too formulaic, too lacking in narrative, may kill the once-active, inquisitive mind of a child. Education has to achieve a balance between structure and freedom, and each child’s needs may be extremely variable.

In the United States I saw how the market liberates the individual and allows people to be free to make personal choices. But the biggest drawback was that the market always pushes things to the side of the powerful. I thought the poor should be able to take advantage of the system in order to improve their lot. Grameen is a private-sector self-help bank, and as its members gain personal wealth they acquire water-pumps, latrines, housing, education, access to health care, and so on. Another way to achieve this is to let abusiness earn profit that is then txed by the government, and the tax can be used to provide services to the poor. But in practice it never works that way. In real life, taxes only pay for a government bureaucracy that collects the tax and provides little or nothing to the poor. And since most government bureaucracies are not profit motivated, they have little incentive to increase their efficiency. In fact, they have a disincentive: governments often cannot cut social services without a public outcry, so the behemoth continues, blind and inefficient, year after year.

For both men and women, Good Men can be somewhat disturbing to be around because they usually do not act in ways associated with typical men; they listen more than they talk; they self-reflect on their behavior and motives, they actively educate themselves about women’s reality by seeking out women’s culture and listening to women…. They avoid using women for vicarious emotional expression…. When they err—and they do err—they look to women for guidance, and receive criticism with gratitude. They practice enduring uncertainty while waiting for a new way of being to reveal previously unconsidered alternatives to controlling and abusive behavior. They intervene in other men’s misogynist behavior, even when women are not present, and they work hard to recognize and challenge their own. Perhaps most amazingly, Good Men perceive the value of a feminist practice for themselves, and they advocate it not because it’s politically correct, or because they want women to like them, or even because they want women to have equality, but because they understand that male privilege prevents them not only from becoming whole, authentic human beings but also from knowing the truth about the world…. They offer proof that men can change.

Owing to the shape of a bell curve, the education system is geared to the mean. Unfortunately, that kind of education is virtually calculated to bore and alienate gifted minds. But instead of making exceptions where it would do the most good, the educational bureaucracy often prefers not to be bothered. In my case, for example, much of the schooling to which I was subjected was probably worse than nothing. It consisted not of real education, but of repetition and oppressive socialization (entirely superfluous given the dose of oppression I was getting away from school). Had I been left alone, preferably with access to a good library and a minimal amount of high-quality instruction, I would at least have been free to learn without useless distractions and gratuitous indoctrination. But alas, no such luck. Let’s try to break the problem down a bit. The education system […] is committed to a warm and fuzzy but scientifically counterfactual form of egalitarianism which attributes all intellectual differences to environmental factors rather than biology, implying that the so-called 'gifted' are just pampered brats who, unless their parents can afford private schooling, should atone for their undeserved good fortune by staying behind and enriching the classroom environments of less privileged students. This approach may appear admirable, but its effects on our educational and intellectual standards, and all that depends on them, have already proven to be overwhelmingly negative. This clearly betrays an ulterior motive, suggesting that it has more to do with social engineering than education. There is an obvious difference between saying that poor students have all of the human dignity and basic rights of better students, and saying that there are no inherent educationally and socially relevant differences among students. The first statement makes sense, while the second does not. The gifted population accounts for a very large part of the world’s intellectual resources. As such, they can obviously be put to better use than smoothing the ruffled feathers of average or below-average students and their parents by decorating classroom environments which prevent the gifted from learning at their natural pace. The higher we go on the scale of intellectual brilliance – and we’re not necessarily talking just about IQ – the less support is offered by the education system, yet the more likely are conceptual syntheses and grand intellectual achievements of the kind seldom produced by any group of markedly less intelligent people. In some cases, the education system is discouraging or blocking such achievements, and thus cheating humanity of their benefits.

Like money, approval from others is a form of extrinsic reward. Our culture has educated us to hunger for reward. We attended schools that used extrinsic means to motivate us to study; we grew up in homes where we were rewarded for being good little boys and girls, and were punished when our caretakers judged us to be otherwise. Thus, as adults, we easily trick ourselves into believing that life consists of doing things for reward; we are addicted to getting a smile, a pat on the back, and people’s verbal judgments that we are a “good person,” “good parent,” “good citizen,” “good worker,” “good friend,” and so forth. We do things to get people to like us and avoid things that may lead people to dislike or punish us.

A person who peremptorily denies the existence of anything which is beyond the horizon of his understanding because he cannot make it harmonise with his accepted opinions is as credulous as he who believes everything without any discrimination. Either of these persons is not a freethinker, but a slave to the opinions which he has accepted from others, or which he may have formed in the course of his education, and by his special experiences in his (naturally limited) intercourse with the world. If such persons meet with any extraordinary fact that is beyond their own experience, they often either regard it with awe and wonder, and are ready to accept any wild and improbable theory that may be offered to them in regard to such facts, or they sometimes reject the testimony of credible witnesses, and frequently even that of their own senses. They often do not hesitate to impute the basest motives and the most silly puerilities to honourable persons, and are credulous enough to believe that serious and wise people had taken the trouble to play upon them “practical jokes,” and they are often willing to admit the most absurd theories rather than to use their own common sense.

Anger is good... Anger, you see, is to people what fuel is to an automobile. Without it, we would not be motivated to rise to any challenge, and life would be no more than mere existence. Anger is an energy that compels us to define what is right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. Anger is also like electricity. Electricity is powerful-- so powerful, in fact, that it can cause devastating destruction if it is mishandled or abused. But if channeled properly and intelligently, it is highly useful to mankind.

It remains one of the great inequalities of the world that some children are born light years ahead of others. They may come from more stable homes, from wealthy homes, from homes with cleaners and domestic staff, cooks and tutors. Everything is easier, more streamlined, more conducive to educational and career success. Others will come from one-bedroom huts with no running water and no electricity, little chance of a good education, and little time to do anything besides work. The child born into a rich family will, no doubt, progress at a faster rate and develop the sort of self-assurance that comes from stability. This is the case wherever you’re from; it is as true of communist societies as it is of capitalist ones. I have travelled the world and seen these inequalities. I have witnessed the problems such different starting blocks can bring. But if I’ve learned anything, it is that success is possible, whatever your situation and however your life begins. I hope that this story, my story, will prove inspirational and that it will encourage others to dream big, take a plunge, use whatever resources are available. If a small poor boy fishing for prawns on a lake in Ningbo can do it, then so can you.

Dear Fathers of the Fatherless Children, As our sons grow into men; we teach our sons not to be like you. They know they are loved, wanted, handsome, and supported. We raise them to respect women and to get an education. Some will make us proud, and some will disappoint; however, as Chief Guardians, we can sleep at night and say that for eighteen years, we did the best we could do alone. As little girls grow into women, we, as Chief Guardians teach them not to be like you. We school them to not make the same mistakes we made in choosing the wrong men. We raised our daughters to know they are queens and to not accept anything less than that. Our daughters know, they are loved, beautiful, wanted, and supported. Our daughters know they can do whatever they set their minds to do.

There is a frequent tendency in the presentation of mechaincs to use problems mainly as a vehicle to illustrate theory rather than to develop theory for the purpose of solving problems. When the first view is allowed to predominate, problems tend to become overly idealized and unrelated to engineering with the result that the exercise becomes dull, academic, and uninteresting. This approach deprives the students of valuable experience in formulating problems and thus of discovering the need for and meaning of theory. The second view provides by far the stronger motive for learning theory and leads to a better balance between theory and application. The crucial role played by interest and purpose in providing the strongest possible motive for learning cannot be overemphasized." Glenn Kraige, from Merriam & Kraige's Dynamics text, 7th Edition.

May there not be some subconscious jealousy that motivates our reactions to other people? Why do we eat chocolate sundaes when we know that we should reduce? Are we free from the influence of parental training? The Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parental training and all education proceed on the assumption that the will is not free, but can be trained, motivated, and directed. Finally, beyond both physiology and psychology there is God. Can we be sure that he is not directing our choices? Do we know that we are free from his grace? The Psalm says, "Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach you." Is it certain that God has not caused us to choose to approach him? Can we set a limit to God's power? Can we tell how far it extends and just where it ends? Are we outside his control?

I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.

Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings where officials redraw precincts to dilute African American voting strength or seek to slash the government payrolls that have long served as sources of black employment. It goes virtually unnoticed, however, because white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors, who cast its efforts as noble, though they are actually driven by the most ignoble motivations. White rage recurs in American history. It exploded after the Civil War, erupted again to undermine the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, and took on its latest incarnation with Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House. For every action of African American advancement, there’s a reaction, a backlash. The

The news filled me with such euphoria that for an instant I was numb. My ingrained self-censorship immediately started working: I registered the fact that there was an orgy of weeping going on around me, and that I had to come up with some suitable performance. There seemed nowhere to hide my lack of correct emotion except the shoulder of the woman in front of me, one of the student officials, who was apparently heartbroken. I swiftly buried my head in her shoulder and heaved appropriately. As so often in China, a bit of ritual did the trick. Sniveling heartily she made a movement as though she was going to turn around and embrace me I pressed my whole weight on her from behind to keep her in her place, hoping to give the impression that I was in a state of abandoned grief. In the days after Mao's death, I did a lot of thinking. I knew he was considered a philosopher, and I tried to think what his 'philosophy' really was. It seemed to me that its central principle was the need or the desire? for perpetual conflict. The core of his thinking seemed to be that human struggles were the motivating force of history and that in order to make history 'class enemies' had to be continuously created en masse. I wondered whether there were any other philosophers whose theories had led to the suffering and death of so many. I thought of the terror and misery to which the Chinese population had been subjected. For what? But Mao's theory might just be the extension of his personality. He was, it seemed to me, really a restless fight promoter by nature, and good at it. He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilize them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out many of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred. But how much individual responsibility ordinary people should share, I could not decide. The other hallmark of Maoism, it seemed to me, was the reign of ignorance. Because of his calculation that the cultured class were an easy target for a population that was largely illiterate, because of his own deep resentment of formal education and the educated, because of his megalomania, which led to his scorn for the great figures of Chinese culture, and because of his contempt for the areas of Chinese civilization that he did not understand, such as architecture, art, and music, Mao destroyed much of the country's cultural heritage. He left behind not only a brutalized nation, but also an ugly land with little of its past glory remaining or appreciated. The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings. Weeping for Mao was perhaps just another programmed act in their programmed lives. Yet the mood of the nation was unmistakably against continuing Mao's policies. Less than a month after his death, on 6 October, Mme Mao was arrested, along with the other members of the Gang of Four. They had no support from anyone not the army, not the police, not even their own guards. They had had only Mao. The Gang of Four had held power only because it was really a Gang of Five. When I heard about the ease with which the Four had been removed, I felt a wave of sadness. How could such a small group of second-rate tyrants ravage 900 million people for so long? But my main feeling was joy. The last tyrants of the Cultural Revolution were finally gone.

The actual consumers of knowledge are the children—who can’t pay, can’t vote, can’t sit on the committees. Their parents care for them, but don’t sit in the classes themselves; they can only hold politicians responsible according to surface images of “tough on education.” Politicians are too busy being re-elected to study all the data themselves; they have to rely on surface images of bureaucrats being busy and commissioning studies—it may not work to help any children, but it works to let politicians appear caring. Bureaucrats don’t expect to use textbooks themselves, so they don’t care if the textbooks are hideous to read, so long as the process by which they are purchased looks good on the surface. The textbook publishers have no motive to produce bad textbooks, but they know that the textbook purchasing committee will be comparing textbooks based on how many different subjects they cover, and that the fourth-grade purchasing committee isn’t coordinated with the third-grade purchasing committee, so they cram as many subjects into one textbook as possible. Teachers won’t get through a fourth of the textbook before the end of the year, and then the next year’s teacher will start over. Teachers might complain, but they aren’t the decision-makers, and ultimately, it’s not their future on the line, which puts sharp bounds on how much effort they’ll spend on unpaid altruism . . .

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

When I was growing up it was still acceptable—not to me but in social terms—to say that one was not interested in science and did not see the point in bothering with it. This is no longer the case. Let me be clear. I am not promoting the idea that all young people should grow up to be scientists. I do not see that as an ideal situation, as the world needs people with a wide variety of skills. But I am advocating that all young people should be familiar with and confident around scientific subjects, whatever they choose to do. They need to be scientifically literate, and inspired to engage with developments in science and technology in order to learn more. A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my mind, a dangerous and limited one. I seriously doubt whether long-range beneficial projects such as cleaning up the oceans or curing diseases in the developing world would be given priority. Worse, we could find that technology is used against us and that we might have no power to stop it. I don’t believe in boundaries, either for what we can do in our personal lives or for what life and intelligence can accomplish in our universe. We stand at a threshold of important discoveries in all areas of science. Without doubt, our world will change enormously in the next fifty years. We will find out what happened at the Big Bang. We will come to understand how life began on Earth. We may even discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. While the chances of communicating with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species may be slim, the importance of such a discovery means we must not give up trying. We will continue to explore our cosmic habitat, sending robots and humans into space. We cannot continue to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. Through scientific endeavour and technological innovation, we must look outwards to the wider universe, while also striving to fix the problems on Earth. And I am optimistic that we will ultimately create viable habitats for the human race on other planets. We will transcend the Earth and learn to exist in space. This is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of what I hope will be billions of years of life flourishing in the cosmos. And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be. So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.

Patriotism comes from the same Latin word as father. Blind patriotism is collective transference. In it the state becomes a parent and we citizens submit our loyalty to ensure its protection. We may have been encouraged to make that bargain from our public school education, our family home, religion, or culture in general. We associate safety with obedience to authority, for example, going along with government policies. We then make duty, as it is defined by the nation, our unquestioned course. Our motivation is usually not love of country but fear of being without a country that will defend us and our property. Connection is all-important to us; excommunication is the equivalent of death, the finality we can’t dispute. Healthy adult loyalty is a virtue that does not become blind obedience for fear of losing connection, nor total devotion so that we lose our boundaries. Our civil obedience can be so firm that it may take precedence over our concern for those we love, even our children. Here is an example: A young mother is told by the doctor that her toddler is allergic to peanuts and peanut oil. She lets the school know of her son’s allergy when he goes to kindergarten. Throughout his childhood, she is vigilant and makes sure he is safe from peanuts in any form. Eighteen years later, there is a war and he is drafted. The same mother, who was so scrupulously careful about her child’s safety, now waves goodbye to him with a tear but without protest. Mother’s own training in public school and throughout her life has made her believe that her son’s life is expendable whether or not the war in question is just. “Patriotism” is so deeply ingrained in her that she does not even imagine an alternative, even when her son’s life is at stake. It is of course also true that, biologically, parents are ready to let children go just as the state is ready to draft them. What a cunning synchronic-ity. In addition, old men who decide on war take advantage of the timing too. The warrior archetype is lively in eighteen-year-olds, who are willing to fight. Those in their mid-thirties, whose archetype is being a householder and making a mark in their chosen field, will not show an interest in battlefields of blood. The chiefs count on the fact that young braves will take the warrior myth literally rather than as a metaphor for interior battles. They will be willing to put their lives on the line to live out the collective myth of societies that have not found the path of nonviolence. Our collective nature thus seems geared to making war a workable enterprise. In some people, peacemaking is the archetype most in evidence. Nature seems to have made that population smaller, unfortunately. Our culture has trained us to endure and tolerate, not to protest and rebel. Every cell of our bodies learned that lesson. It may not be virtue; it may be fear. We may believe that showing anger is dangerous, because it opposes the authority we are obliged to appease and placate if we are to survive. This explains why we so admire someone who dares to say no and to stand up or even to die for what he believes. That person did not fall prey to the collective seduction. Watching Jeopardy on television, I notice that the audience applauds with special force when a contestant risks everything on a double-jeopardy question. The healthy part of us ardently admires daring. In our positive shadow, our admiration reflects our own disavowed or hidden potential. We, too, have it in us to dare. We can stand up for our truth, putting every comfort on the line, if only we can calm our long-scared ego and open to the part of us that wants to live free. Joseph Campbell says encouragingly, “The part of us that wants to become is fearless.” Religion and Transference Transference is not simply horizontal, from person to person, but vertical from person to a higher power, usually personified as God. When