Grades, Education, and Possibly Some Motivation (Whateva')

EDIT: I've had a few complaints about the fluidity of this post, and believe me I've read it too. It is choppy for one main reason - it's cleaned up. The original was a harsh read as far as language and words, so I opted for rapids rather than a stream. Sorry. If you want the "Parental Advisory" post, let me know. If enough people want it, I will deliver, OR I can just send it to the individuals that want it. Keep in mind that all posts up to now have an uncensored version so you can ask for those too. Much love.

Who is your inspiration, like, how gives you more inspiration than anyone else? Now before I answer that, I want you to take a second, minute, hour and answer that for yourself.

Now my answer to who inspires me, of course the obvious ones, there are people like my mom or people who overcome things. It bothers me when people say, "Oh yeah, well my inspiration, my idol is Lebron James." Lebron James is 18 feet tall, if he could not dunk a ball over someone's head, he should be shot in the face like a horse who has a limp. But if there's one, specific person who inspires me, it's myself for overcoming myself every day. I am the most self-destructive person on the planet. =)

But honestly, there are two main inspirations in my life. You know, the thing that kept me kinda diggin' the whole knowledge thing. You know, growing up in middle school and high school, I never really got the attention of girls. It didn't really happen until the beginning of college when I sorta' came out of my social shell. That and when I lost so much weight part way into high school cause I was a huge when I was little. During the high school, I was just this skinny kid without a personality. Yeah, still working on that whole personality thing. Which if you're a girl you know that a fit dude with a fat guy personality is just amazing. Same thing for the guys when you find a pretty girl with a personality, you're saying, "What happened to you!? Are you from the future!? Bring me to your magical time machine!" Because, obviously, hot girls in the future have gotten hotter and what they see as ugly is still a 10 in our books. And all of the sudden it's just like, "omg, girls like me?", the guys are like, "your cool...dude, man." This was three months ago, the slang was completely different back then,  you know broheme? People like me for being me? What is wrong with this world!?

And of course there's just the opposite spectrum of just hate. Haters, haters. Not even just people from the interwebs, just people who are just mean and rude and you're just like, "dude, I'm going to be so much better than you so I can look back at you and just be like, 'what a schmuck.'" Is it petty and mean-spirited, yes. And probably makes me a very bad person, but there's nothing like winning at life. You want to get inspired? Get angry. Someone calls you fat: lose that weight and then do something crazy (I cleaned that up... a bunch, be happy). Thus you win. Check mate. And as you can probably tell, anger has always been my biggest inspiration. Though, most of it has not been as evil. Or of hearing, "no you can't," all the time and then doing it. Really how can you change without a little destruction in the first place?

Now, what I think really matters, as far as motivation in education, is that kids are doing things that they are interested in, that they are tapping that drive to do stuff because it's fascinating, just tapping that curiosity. And just encouraging a sense of rigor that comes from the internal desire to master what they love not because it pays $x, or it gets you y, but because they understand how it all fits together. That kids are motivated by the joy of learning itself. Those are the things that, I think, the very best educators have been fighting for, but the trouble if that they've been fighting in a system that, often, suffocates that.

The purpose of grades is a form of feedback. The reason we want it to be that is because we want to know how we are doing, and the reason we want to know how we are doing is because we want to get better at what we are doing. But I think that point has been lost. That is, we often see grades as the goal, grades are the whole point of why you're doing what you're doing. And what that does, there has been research on this and it has been pretty clear, is that it allows to "perform" very well in the short-term, but it doesn't lead to any kind of enduring learning and leads to less profound kinds of learning. I don't have a single answer here. I don't know if the answer is eliminating grades, that seems to be a bit radical, but maybe that is the solution. But I think, getting back to first principles, they're a great form of feedback, it's getting kids involved in the process, yet in someways it is down-playing their significance. When I was in high-school school, I could've gotten very good grades. Not because I was learning anything, but because I knew the way to get good grades was to give the authority figure what he or she wanted it on time and neatly. It fosters a sense of compliance rather than engagement and it really short-changes kids over the long-haul.

But, of course, if you have any questions for me, just send them as a comment or look me up on facebook.