What’s this all about, anyway?

This isn’t about “schools.”

It’s about all of us getting smarter and thinking harder.

It’s about a better life.

It should matter to you, too.

No. It must matter to you.

Pay attention.

Because we’re lagging.

Because we can’t fire bad teachers.

Because Japan and China own 44% of our asses our debt.

Because you work on Saturday.

Because we’re about to be outsourced.

Because our options might be making us unhappy.

Because 67% of us are overweight.

Because we’re running out of oil.

Because it’s $200K to go to college.

Because we’re ditching arts education and we don’t know why that’s bad.

Because we don’t eat dinner together.

Because managers are the new therapists.

Because we’re watching more than 4 hours of TV a day.

Because we don’t know good when we hear it.

Because of ADD and depression and autism.

Because we don’t learn how to think anymore.

Because the US spends $123K on a student education. But we rank 10th.

Because a US passport isn’t a passport to entitlement.

Because there are patents on corn.

Because the achievement gap is real.

Because we’re supposed to be the home of the brave.

Because 3.8 million of us were in foreclosure in 2009.

Because we’re still suspect of women who aren’t married or aren’t moms.

Because we think people who work with their hands are “blue collar.”

Because everything is disposable.

Because Socrates made sense.

Because our job interviews are predicated on how well we fit in, not what we can do.

Because we’ve got to get back to basics.

Because the boomers are about to retire.

Because we drive-thru.

Because we’ve got our politics and our religion mixed up.

Because we’ve stopped listening.

Because we’re always shopping.

Because our culture is suffering.

Because our health is suffering.

Because our economy is suffering.

Because this is an emergency.

What we know about knowledge, what we teach about teaching, what we think about thinking… has to change.