You know there is without a doubt a BIG need for education reform. There is so much potential we have as a dividing country and growing global society. Taking a logic class this semester has helped me greatly in my analytical strengths, "Strengths finder 2.0" but also, just all around life. Logic is the science of thought and reason. And we as a people to some, if not many degrees are terrible at it! And we're not even talking "Emotional Intelligence" so much, because though it is connected, it is a separate filed of intelligence as well. it is not a natural process, you have to be taught, educated and practice just like anything else. We are taught "what" to think not "how" to think, that's why classes like logic among others should be induced into the school system at a younger age and part of the main curriculum. Get them to think for themselves, think outside the box. We HAVE TO get beyond this idea that the core curriculum involves, focuses and repeats things like math, science "not the process of it, but some areas of focus in it", history...everybody knows them. And don't get me wrong those are very important but they are reintroduced year, after year, after year. Ask your self if you can remember even 50% of the details of what you learned. Tell me, with out looking what year Columbus made it too America, or tell me all the things Benjamin Franklin accomplished. Go look in an algebra book and see if you can still figure out how to do half the equations. Point to Norway on a map. Get the point? Now some of you will obviously know the answers but statistically most you wont without looking it up. I sure don't. God knows I've killed a lot brain cells in my day though,ha. And in today's society there is even less of a need to have complicated facts,dates or memorized because we are the most connected generation ever. We're have growth exponentially, You literally can find the answer to almost any question within a matter of minutes. Should I even bring up the well documented sources such as"      "  that state our current method of memorization is one of the worst ways to learn. So I beg the question? Is all this math, history, geography necessary, Are we teaching ourselfs wrong? Yes and know. obviously there needs to be a general level of knowledge in these areas to function as a society. But after that education needs to be come more decentralized " The Star fish and the spider". Students benefit more when their strengths and interest or engaged. Take Luke, Luke is a problem child with lets say a passion for playing the guitar. He is failing in school. If we let a large focus of his education center in music. A wonderful thing starts to happen. He starts to fall in love with learning, growing his self,  mastering something.  We then use this forward momentum of learning to spill over in other areas. Countless studies have been done in the area of motivation. Studies show that work that requires less cognitive thinking such as moving boxes, flipping burgers, entering data and such, money influences a little bit. There is slight increase in the productivity. But when it comes to critical and creative thinking something weird happens. Money actually hinders work. But what does really motivate people is three things. Autonomy, higher purpose and mastery. As a leader, and teachers are leaders! It's important to have good ideas, but if you want to do something great with those ideas, you must be able to influence others to join forces with you. As a teacher You need to be able to convince your students to share your vision of growth and passion for learning but you have to do it by sharing their vision on what that is. You can use a tasty carrot or sharp stick -- both have their place -- but I think it's better to have a keener understanding of human nature and what it is that motivates us and how we best learn. There is so much time and energy wasted through our current state of education. The efficiency of teaching people what to think and learn instead of how to think and learn is significant. This is what Einstein has to say on the matter "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." And really we're bad at both I mean sure we are taught logically, 1+2=3. (conclusion- Columbus was the home founder of Western Civilization (Premisses- because we have enough historical evidence to support that claim. But we are not taught how to think critically, openly, how to set aside emotional or culturl biases. You can see how it creates separation, discourse, animosity. A prime example is what we see on T.V. Our leaders of America so to speak aka political servants, are often shown to be at each other throats when it comes to disagreements. They close themselves off. Separate them selves from their opponents and their parties then demonize them. And not only do we do this within the nation we do it abroad as well. Even hidden behind the noble act of patriotism are elements of unreasonable pride and righteousness. There is so much more to learn and dare I say important things to focus on in our ever pursuit of happiness and education.