The problem in modern America is not that an individual can't make a difference, but that nearly all of us are too distracted to even consider trying.
Great teachers and schools expect and nurture quality work and quality performance. Great teachers inspire and demand quality, ever urging their students to higher levels of excellence. They shun mere conformity and expect their students to think and perform to their ever-increasing potential.
We tend to let our freedoms slip away because they are tucked away in documents and policies that we don't ever deal with directly.
Our middle class majority, deeply in personal debt, elects political leaders who increase our benefits. Then we vote them out because we dislike the soaring national debt.
Government intervention is not solving the problems, and in fact the governments around the world that are intervening the most in their economies are struggling more.
The U.S. should take notes: Government overspending and a campaign of alienating investors and small business isn't really the best way to boost the economy or overcome massive unemployment.
If Americans are frustrated with Congress, imagine their frustration with a group of international bank officials running our ecomomy-bankers who may not have as their motive either to see us out of debt to them or to strengthen our economy, society, international influence, or other elements of our way of life.
The most powerful lessons occur where studies intersect with real life.
Most people spend less than 20 hrs a year learning about freedom, yet many wonder why it's in decline. Don't fight upstream. Instead, turn it around.
The myth is that it is possible for one human being to educate another
Teachers teach and students educate. Students are the only true educators. Historically, every other method of education has failed. Education occurs when students get excited about learning and apply themselves; students do this when they experience great teachers.
Still reading but learning a lot about true education and the process of guiding our children in their educational pursuits.
Our generation, and that of our children, will face its share of crises, just like every generation in the past. When those calls come, will you be ready? The answer depends on how we educate the next generation.
Instead of asking, "What can I do to make these students perform?" the great teacher says, "Something's not working! I must not be truly inspirational. What do I need to do to spark their passion to do the hard work to get a superb education?"
There are really only two ways to teach. You can inspire the student to voluntarily and enthusiastically choose to do the hard work necessary to get a great education, or you can attempt to require it of him.
Virtually every subject is most effectively learned directly from the greatest thinkers, historians, artists, philosophers, scientists, prophets and their original works. Great works inspire greatness. Mediocre or poor works inspire mediocre or poor learning. The great accomplishments of humanity are the key to quality education.
It is time to stop talking so much about what kind of leaders we want, to give less lip service to what Washington or Wall Street or Hollywood should do, and to act a lot more like citizens who actually deserve freedom.
Today we are at a crossroads. The technology is available for two great options: The massive surveillance state, or the renewed freedom of a deeply-involved citizenry thinking independently and holding the government to the highest standards.
Producers think in the language of abundance rather than scarcity, take initiative instead of waiting for someone else to provide them with opportunity, and boldly venture wise risks instead of surrendering to fear that they can't make a difference.
"Thanks," many small businesspeople are saying, "but no thanks. Forget the government credits and loan programs, and just get rid of all the bureaucratic red tape and high taxes which make it hard to build businesses, hire employees and meet our payroll."
Perhaps our most debilitating rut as a culture is a dependence on experts. Until we kick this dependency, how can we rise above the statistics and become a nation of entrepreneurs and leaders? The answer, as challenging as it is, is for entrepreneurs to show us the way, and to keep at it until more of us start to heed.
Indeed, we have reached a level of complexity where simplicity itself is suspect. For example, the simple reality is that jobs migrate to less difficult nations. It's the old Rule of Capital: Capital goes where it is treated well.
Prosperity and abundance in a society depend on a certain type of person: the producer. Societies with few producers stagnate and decay, while nations with a large number of producers vibrantly grow-in wealth, freedom, power, influence and the pursuit of happiness.
In nations that have become too complex, taxes and regulation cause at least a doubling of the amount employers must spend on labor. Many experts call this 'progress,' but the natural result is that many companies respond by sending their operations and jobs to less costly nations.
In our day, a vast majority of people is dependent either on an employer or the government-or both. One way to rate your level of independence might be to measure how long you can survive, feed your family and live in your home after your employer stops paying you anything.
