The Principal

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Dan Cardinali's definition of Non Cognitive Skills includes the following: Building grit, and resilience, and persistence, and self-regulation. He's describing skills of a Warrior, a Fighter, an Authentic Grown Up.

Dan Cardinali explains that ideally families should provide Non Cognitive Skills (Child Development), and then schools will deliver Academic Development (Math, History, Physics).

But this is not how it works today, well to do parents are too busy, parents stricken by poverty can't have time, and non-cognitive skill development is not only unavailable, but is often laughed at by teachers "Parents do your job." they brainlessly utter.

Above all, a child born to the culture of poverty (lacking non-cognitive skills) will often remain in the culture of poverty be it dropping out or graduation. The steps out and up are just too far apart.

How dare you.

How. Dare. You.

Image from The Surprising Truth About Learning in Schools by Will Richardson

It is correct to say that Poverty of Mind is rooted in lack of Non Cognitive Skills.

An example of poverty of mind is inability to have an expensive lunch with an internship company CEO. Out of fear of not knowing EVERYTHING! from how to get a table to when to order, or even if it is OK to just have the cute little bagel and focus on the questionnaire. Lunch, if not impossible, can be impossibly terrifying.

There is no breaking out of poverty when every-step induces fear, confusion, anxiety.

To be clear, the ultimate aim for both Student and Principal. Almost always, is to rise and break away, become a CEO.

Become an inspiration and a teacher; to make life more. To then retire come the Golden Age of Wisdom and write. Write about the lessons that counted to make them last even longer. Create an Audio Book in your own voice in hopes of it being used 50 years from now to Rise & Learn to Really Learn. What an Honor to have your spirit revived by means of Admiration and Love, your own voice across decades, maybe centuries, maybe forever.

Instead, the children are getting scared, mostly because they can see schools are forcing irrelevant learning that fades away. It is impossible to retain irrelevant knowledge. In context of education, forcing irrelevant knowledge and grading a student down for lack of retention is evil.

And here the child does not want the job because it has too many complications, can't even have the internship lunch because it is too terrifying, and can't conceive of the notion of connecting with the CEO in such a way as to eventually resign position and start a company in a similar sector.

They are scared, sometimes crushed, but far too brave to show you... Principal.

We know what happens to most young people that can't handle fear or depression.

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Be it by intent or ignorance, anybody taking part in the fracturing of minds, and young minds especially, is just another monster.

A school must become a place of healing before it can hope to teach.

It must protect against all kinds of poverty, and bad parents, dangerous culture and bad ideas.

Today school is a bad place. Just another broken promise.

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[My] recruiting does not have anything that says "Requires University" because that's absurd, but there is a requirement of evidence of exceptional ability. [...] I don't consider going to college evidence of exceptional ability in fact ideally you dropped out and did something [exceptional].

What can be easier than to help a child grow?

what can be more rewarding than to be Admired, Loved, Remembered? To have a High School named after you upon your retirement, and have every student that goes there at least look at your picture with your beloved students hugging you as if you were their own Mother.

Focus on Real Education, not Administration. If you need money, then look to your students.

Become a Start-up Accelerator. Give them initial mentoring and funding, Take a small percentage of their earnings in return for the initial funding and in order to fund other start-ups. Take only for a small number of years, and only what you need. Get out of their way.

Never forget, Principal. You serve The Kids, The Students, they are the point of it all, they are the future. The Children are not your means to staying in business and getting paid- that would make you a Monster and a Fraud.

The best way to fight poverty in a person's mind, is to set a student up for a job so high up, that it will make them want to run out of the school quietly-yelling and hope they never need to come back.

A prestigious position at a local Hospital as a Research Nurse that keeps everyone informed a month ahead of time, a complicated job at the Library of Congress, or as Someone Amazing at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Set a step so high, that it is already a healthy career but completely unreachable to the child, the step up being, Just Impossible. And then slowly, build. But smaller steps, and maybe even smaller, or maybe even an on-ramp for a smooth ride.

Image from Can anyone become a genius? by Mark Diaz

It is not just "grit, and resilience, and persistence, and self-regulation", Dan Cardinali shows that Talitha Halley had enormous amount of help beyond Belief and Love which is already wonderful. Donna Watkins (Talitha's community-school site coordinator) looked for every developmental opportunity.

Talitha must have said she was scared to go to the Fancy Lunch and Donna came to her rescue, that is so brave and so sweet.

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Academic Development can't succeed on its own, it is incompatible with who we are, we are not machines that can make room for knowledge on our long-term storage drive. Even with a blooming ecosystem of Memory Palaces, that which is irrelevant to out Hearts and Existence will be soon forgotten.

This parade through classes, levels, and subjects is a waste of time. Our time is precious, life is so dear. There simply is no time for charades.

Principal, stand up, and deliver.