By many reports, the millennial generation is the most educated generation in US history—and by some stretch. Take a look at this graph from Pew Research.
Yet, they have a problem. Despite all this higher education, they have the highest levels of unemployment of any work demographic and they make 20 percent less than their parents did at the same stage of life.
FACT: To give their kids the best chance of success in life, many parents today spend hefty sums to send them to the best schools – sometimes abroad. Sadly, many such kids eventually graduate and have to struggle, alongside less qualified others, to find good employment – or ending up underemployed!
Read also(*Added on 23rd July 2017):
- [RECOMMENDED] BBC NEWS: Could subjects soon be a thing of the past in Finland?
- Schools Can Kill Your Child’s Creativity – IF You Don’t Apply These Tips
- A New Generation of Entrepreneurs PROVES That Our Schools Need To Offer a Different Kind of Education!
- Proof that Schooling Can Dis-Empower Your Child Economically!
- No. 153: A “Formula” Schools Need to Teach, But Don’t! (FREE PDF Report)
- Is Your Child Learning For School Or For Life?
- The Hood Does Not Make the Monk. School Uniforms Don’t Guarantee Learning!
- Don’t Let Wrong Teachers Make Your Child A Thinking Pigmy!
Very rarely, does s/he ever seriously contemplate exploring the option of starting his/her own business – even though it frequently promises much better rewards!
The reason that happens is that our kids go through life being told they only need to get good grades and then get a good job, to make it in life.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE FULL ISSUE
Monday 12th June 2017
NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.
************
FACT: To give their kids the best chance of success in life, many parents today spend hefty sums to send them to the best schools – sometimes abroad. Sadly, many such kids eventually graduate and have to struggle, alongside less qualified others, to find good employment – or ending up underemployed!
Read also(*Added on 23rd July 2017):
- [RECOMMENDED] BBC NEWS: Could subjects soon be a thing of the past in Finland?
- Schools Can Kill Your Child’s Creativity – IF You Don’t Apply These Tips
- A New Generation of Entrepreneurs PROVES That Our Schools Need To Offer a Different Kind of Education!
- Proof that Schooling Can Dis-Empower Your Child Economically!
- No. 153: A “Formula” Schools Need to Teach, But Don’t! (FREE PDF Report)
- Is Your Child Learning For School Or For Life?
- The Hood Does Not Make the Monk. School Uniforms Don’t Guarantee Learning!
- Don’t Let Wrong Teachers Make Your Child A Thinking Pigmy!
Very rarely, does s/he ever seriously contemplate exploring the option of starting his/her own business – even though it frequently promises much better rewards!
The reason that happens is that our kids go through life being told they only need to get good grades and then get a good job, to make it in life.
Some people argue that that a child should not engage in income earning activities while schooling – and even call it child abuse. I argue that THAT is not correct, because it is the “HOW” of it that matters.
I’ve schooled with orphans and indigent students (and I’ve also had clients who told me that as kids they) had to work to pay their way through school – for various reasons.
What I found out was that those experiences forced them to mature faster and develop competencies to arrive adulthood readier to succeed in spite of adversity in the real world, than many of their peers, who did not have to fend for themselves to complete their education.
That’s the key: First we need to define what society’s expectations of them will be!
[NB: This does not mean they have to accept those expectations. Instead, it’s about PREPARING the kids to deal with those demands and expctations psychologically or otherwise.]
Will their certificates and degrees be enough? Or will they be measured based on how much money they have regardless of their educational attainments?
Truth be told, the latter is the reality that confronts us today.
Most people in society pay MORE attention to how much material possessions and money you have, than they do to your academic qualifications or credentials.
It’s also why no one seems to care how others make money anymore. Once you have it, people fall in line and “respect you”. The well schooled person unable to function in a crooked society that does not recognize merit, then ends up being ridiculed about “blowing grammar and knowing too much book”
That’s why blatant bribery and corruption in schools and religious institutions is so rampant.
My views on this subject have been shaped by my experiences as a product of the conventional schooling system.
I excelled in paid employment – but encountered serious absence of fair and impartial systems to reward my efforts in entrepreneurship – until I developed a system that greatly reduced my need to interact directly with people in my society to make money I needed.
The pain and suffering I passed through taught me that Vocational Skills Based Schooling is the safest and most reliable way to educate a child for self-actualization – especially in Nigeria.
Any school system that cannot provide a real world relevant vocational (NOT hobbies) base for education of learners will NOT have access to my kids.
I see today’s conventional schooling not counting in society and honesty/integrity being ridiculed.
This is a fact that stares us in the face DAILY.
Yet we continue using an education system that fails to eliminate that embarrassing imbalance!
The question I continue to ask is: Must everyone pass through the same educational system? Does everyone NEED to pass through the same TRAINING?
The answer of course is NO. We all differ from one another – and our unique abilities will often determine what method of learning best suits EACH of us.
Like I’ve said in the past, human beings are not like livestock (poultry, pigs etc). We cannot be reared in uniform BATCHES based on the same menu of INPUT.
To do so would be to damage the individuality of each person. Room has to be made for the unique needs of each person!
That’s why Sir Ken Robinson said it damage creativity.
Little wonder that many gifted kids emerge from it looking and acting clueless most times. It is also why we keep coming across trained medical doctors who switch careers late in life to finds success and fulfillment in professional soccer or fashion design!
In Nigeria, it is why our kids who graduate from our schools are getting described as “unemployable”. And it’s also why the idea of self-employment is so difficult for most of our graduates to comprehend!
Like he wrote: “…It seems our spirits are in recession. We suffer from lack in the midst of plenty.”Click here to read the status update.
Once a child can read and write competently, s/he can learn any subject s/he has interest in.
I’m training my kids to develop a firm vocational skills “reflex” as a basis for their academic studies. In other words, they are being taught to identify vocations they LOVE and channel their academic energies towards theoretical and practical mastery of it i.e. killing two birds with one stone.
This will make them creative thinking self-directed learners.
We fail to realize the real ultimate and most important goal of schooling. As a parent who was brilliant in passing thru the school system, the experiences I’ve had in life have taught me that our conventional schools focus on teaching too little of what matters the most in the real world – especially the hands-on practical stuff that have to do with living a successful life!
In today’s Nigeria, most people are just mindlessly doing what others have done, with regard to educating their kids, without checking to see if a better way exists.
Considering the fact that those who received similar schooling in the past, are today walking the streets struggling in spite of the obeying the “Every child must go to school” law, I wonder why this is so!
The answer my objective evaluation gave me was NO.
So I decided to develop a complementary program of my own that would give my kids a better foundation to protect their minds against future exposure.
Today we use a technology and exercise based model, with a vocational bias to progress. They carry out specific tasks including but not limited to book work.
Now, while we’re on the subject of exams…
It’s funny that I did not know about it earlier, but there are apparently societies that do not require kids to take exams at certain levels – yet the kids that pass through their schooling systems still excel internationally.
Sadly, many Nigerian parents don’t even know this truth.
And those who do already engage in crooked dealings they see others do to get ahead outside paid employment. As a result, they don’t care what schools do because they know they’ll be helping their kids cut corners like they did!
I’m therefore not concerned about such parents.
It’s those law abiding, hardworking and honest parents who fail to see this problem with the Nigerian school system and society, as it can (and often will) negatively affect their kids that I feel sorry for!
1. Click here to learn more about this app – watch demo videos etc
2. Click here to watch a 4 part video in which I demonstrate how to use this app to formulate rations using real life data sent to me by an Algerian PhD student.
Click here to download a detailed PDF user guide and watch 15 screen shot user guide tutorials of the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager that I now offer Farm CEOs.
New posts from last week*
Monday:
[Wednesday]:
[Thursday]:
Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist
*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement
Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.
Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc).
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Succeed by Emerging from Adversity Like a Phoenix
(TayoSolagbade.com launches extra Hosting plan with FREE Web Marketing!)
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
==================
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The truths stated in THIS report is why I INSIST on empowering my kids with real world relevant income earning VOCATIONAL SKILLS as a MAJOR priority – a strategy I advocate for adoption by other parents.
Tackling the Rise of Fake Qualifications in Nigeria By Linus Unah on June 6, 2017
The disease of forging education certificates has infected every sphere of public life in Nigeria, including politics. In fact, several politicians have been embroiled in scandals involving fake certificates.
“Certificates are a big deal in Nigeria. From parents to corporates and the civil service, people attach as much value to educational certificates as to the skills, experience and attributes one has to offer.
This obsession with certificates has created a culture in which most school-goers are much more concerned with getting good grades than they are with acquiring the actual skills and competencies that would stand them in good stead after graduation.
And this – the overwhelming desire to rack up excellent grades – has stolen the joy that comes from studying to acquire a firm grasp on an academic discipline. It has also led many people to falsify their academic records for personal gain.”
Continue reading…
https://thisisafrica.me/tackling-rise-fake-qualifications-nigeria/
On Aug 1, 2014, I wrote my article titled: “Bleaching” Your Skin Insults Your Creator, and Makes You Lose Dignity (Message from Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Lupita Nyong’o to Black/African Parents & their Children)” – click here to read it.
Back then I had not really come across any notable African celebrity who has spoken out against skin bleaching and other ills like Lupita Nyong’O had been doing.
So, when last month I came across this news report about an interview in which Marah Louw has done just that, I knew I would need to republish it on this blog.
And I am equally tired of watching many silly and misguided African males showing illogical preference for lighter skinned females in defining beauty and choosing their partners.
To protect my sons and daughters from these warped values, I will continue to write about them and actively discourage their perpetuation. Recommending this report is one of several ways I do that.
Read the full interview with Marah Louw below:
[RECOMMENDED] “You will never find white people wearing our hair” says Marah Louw, Former South African actress and singer,
Marah Louw a South African singer and actress was this week a guest on the DJ Sbu Breakfast show where she shared her thoughts on the “bleaching phenomenon” and “black self-loathing”. She feels that weaves and bleaching go against people “insulting” what God has created.
She said that she has always been against it because it boils down to “low self-esteem and self-loathe”.
“You will never find white people wearing our hair the way we [wear] other people’s hair; going all out like that. You will never find white people wearing afro wigs, black afro wigs to go out and stuff, unless it’s a [themed] party or the circus,” she added.
“Low self-esteem made us black people hate the colour of their skin, it made us feel like we were [cheated] because we are black. Even in my time people used things like “Ambi cream” so that they became lighter, but I don’t understand why we are insulting the way God created us,” she said.
Source 2: https://thisisafrica.me/will-never-find-white-people-wearing-hair-says-marah-louw/
This post is a follow-up on the preceding piece recommending a BBC report about Finland’s education system. I highlight specific examples of this country’s unique system – for the benefit of many in my part of the world, who clearly do NOT know anything of the sort exists e.g kids who do not start school before 7 years, who take NO EXAMS (Yep. You read THAT right!) etc.
1. Short school days
2. Long holidays
3. Relatively little homework
4. No exams
Finland’s education system has has “long fascinated experts” around the world…because it ”produces high academic results in children who do not start formal schooling until the age of seven (7)”
PROOF IT WORKS:
My Question: How do Nigerian kids (who commence formal schooling from as early as 6 months, often staying morning till evening and taking assignments home) perform on those SAME international league tables?
The truth is Nigerians do NOT even appear there…if they did we would have heard their (expensive!) schools screaming it from the roof tops!!!
Nigerian educators and parents stop wasting kids’ time in a system that does NOT work, and borrow adaptable ideas from one that DOES work – like Finland’s.
This is especially important NOW, that Finland is “shaking up the way it is doing things – a move that it says is vital in a digital age where children are no longer reliant on books and the classroom to gain knowledge.”
Read BBC report about Finland’s new direction in education at www.tinyurl.com/sdn-bbc-finland 
I believe the rest of the world, if they are smart, should pay CLOSE and SERIOUS attention to what Finland is doing with its Education System.
My instincts with regard to the homeschooling I’ve been doing with my kids have been along this line – and that’s why this news from Finland resonates so much with me.
They are just starting out, so teething problems are likely inevitable.
BUT I strongly believe THAT is the way to go in the 21st century for best results!
Below is a preview of the article, ending with a link to the full piece:
BBC NEWS: Could subjects soon be a thing of the past in Finland?
Finland has long been renowned for the quality of its education and always scores highly in international league tables.
Now it is rethinking how it teaches in the digital age – seeking to place skills, as much as subjects, at the heart of what it does. But not everyone is happy, and there are fears it could bring down standards.
….
How Finland has shaken up teaching for the 21st Century
“Its ability to produce high academic results in children who do not start formal schooling until the age of seven, have short school days, long holidays, relatively little homework and no exams, has long fascinated education experts around the world.
Despite this, Finland is shaking up the way it is doing things – a move that it says is vital in a digital age where children are no longer reliant on books and the classroom to gain knowledge.”
Read the full report on the BBC Website here…
NB: I announced the impending publication of this PDF a month ago(27th April 2017), on my wall (click to view)
Preview: On Sunday 22nd April 2017, I suggested that my kids wear to church, the above Adire outfits I’d bought for them the day before, when we’d traveled from Lagos to the African Drums Festival venue in Kuto, Ogun State.
To my surprise, the 4 older ones protested that they would get laughed at by peers for wearing “strange” outfits, opting instead for their usual western themed attires.
BUT after I’d told them about the history of Adire fabric and its international reputation, they relented.
However, their initial reactions impressed upon me the need to make deliberate EDUCATION on African traditions, cultures, values and the History of Ancient African Civilization of my kids a MAJOR focus of my parenting efforts.
….
If someone told African kids all these things and taught them about THEIR RICH ANCESTRY- of which a lot is being re-discovered even now by today’s archeologists and researchers, the young African would stop feeling inferior !
[In case you wonder what I mean by the foregoing, I offer 2 URLs:
…..
An African/Black kid informed and empowered in this manner, is likely to develop great self esteem knowing s/he comes from a line of humans who made significant contributions to civilization.
And from that realization, s/he would draw inspiration to do his/her own bit to move today’s civilization forward.
[TIP: Read this article titled “An Indigenous African Church Leader Who Makes World Class Talking Automobiles (Incl. Engines) From Scratch, Using Local Materials in Ghana (Meet Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo)” at
…..
For instance, many great African American inventors are NOT known – as black – to most African Americans..
Indeed many Americans and the rest of the world, do NOT know them because many had white names and got little media exposure, for their work, even though their inventions got widely used
The famous African American brain surgeon – Dr. Ben Carson – listed MANY such unsung African American inventor heroes in the trailer video for….
The list of inventions he credits to these black heroes is shocking in significance, because we use them virtually EVERYDAY, yet most of us would never guess a black person made them!
See details in my special report titled [FREE] Powerful Truths About Real Black History Not Taught In Schools, But Which You and Your Kids Need to Know at…
….
….End of preview…
This PDF report (one of many to come) narrates highlights from our trip, offering potentially useful insights to parents.
Click here (or the cover image) to submit a web form request for the download link to the PDF report.
Facebook users are posting an emoji of an eight-ball – and it’s all part of a viral campaign to raise awareness about prostate cancer.
The black eight-ball emoji is popping up due to a viral message which is spreading via Facebook Messenger – urging men to post the image on Facebook.
The message says, ‘Hi mate,
http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/08/people-are-posting-an-8-ball-emoji-on-facebook-heres-what-it-means-6496846/
This week’s issue of my Performance Improvement Ideas (PII) newsletter features 9 key questions I strongly recommend every parent ponder seriously over, to accurately discern how well the schooling his/her kids get will prepare them to function as vocationally competent and financially independent adults in society.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ FULL ISSUE
Monday 15th May 2017
NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.
************
This week’s issue of my Performance Improvement Ideas (PII) newsletter features nine (9) key questions I strongly recommend every parent ponder seriously over, to accurately discern how well the schooling his/her kids get will prepare them to function as vocationally competent and financially independent adults in society.
Young people who actively seek ways to get money off you without doing any work or adding any value to you. Adults who constantly scheme and plot to do the same thing.
Personnel in banks who manipulate the computerized systems in their workplaces to skim money off your bank balance, or apply illegal transaction charges to your account.
Telecom companies operatives who subscribe your mobile number to silly services you have no interest in, and/or deduct airtime from your phone for phantom services. These are a few examples of the kind of activities happening with ever increasing frequency in the Nigerian society.
Yet they find it necessary to engage in crooked activities to make money for their companies and themselves.
Like I’ve said in a past article, schooled people who steal are manifestations of a cruel paradox.
I say this because we all know that we are told that if we want to end up well in life, all we need to do is go to school, get good grades and then get good jobs.
That’s why they get sacked and sometimes sentenced to prison. It is why many of them demand and accept bribes where they work. Many MANY examples abound in the past and present history of Nigeria – as I am sure you, the reader, know!
But why do they do it? Why do well schooled people steal?
I’ve answered that question in an earlier article.
It’s because they do NOT know how to make money, or more money and they are AFRAID that the money that have is not (or will not be) enough.
You see, the schools did not teach them how to make money. Only how to work for money – as employees, trading time for money.
And that limits how much they can get. So when they want more, not knowing any better way, they often settle for crooked ways to get it.
The questions outlined below highlight glaring contradictions between what we are told “schooling” WILL deliver to learners, and the realities the learners end up facing upon graduation. Parents who truly love their kids will carefully study these questions and use the insights they gain to better guide their kids’ education.
They see what we do – and refuse to listen to what we say, because they know the latter is NOT true.
Evidence of this is seen in the fact that our TV/Radio and newspapers give superior coverage to news about celebrities in various fields that are often drop outs or poorly schooled.
Out kids also see politicians accused of fraud walking free despite countless visits to courts – and even those who serve jail sentences for stealing being rewarded on their return with heroic welcomes!
While that is happening, they encounter honest and hardworking adults daily – including their own teachers – who never get rich or famous, despite being well schooled! And they also see those who chose to follow their own paths in life, rather than go the conventional schooling route, doing a whole lot better than schooled persons.
It is the mix of all the above that makes schooling so unattractive for kids over time, especially as they grow older – and that is why some choose to drop out.
If truth be told, would one need to force kids to study hard or attend school, like we did in our time, if they saw formally schooled people doing well in large numbers in society?
Case study: Shina Peter told his mum at age 8, that he no longer wished to attend school, choosing instead to live with and apprentice under Ebenezer Obey, so as to pursue his passion of learning to play the Guitar/music.
In a recent (2015) interview, Shina Peters was asked if he regretted not getting a formal education. He replied saying he had no regrets and that he had achieved so much success professionally and financially pursuing his dream as a self-taught musician that he employed well schooled persons, including PhD holders.
Now, THAT is a happy and fulfilled man speaking his mind right there. I believe BEING HAPPY AND FULFILLED is what matters most in life, and each of us as parents need to guide our kids to achieve that end.
A person’s creative genius is a crucial ingredient needed to achieve that optimal state of being.
Any schooling system that does NOT enhance the learner’s ability to put that genius to use in achieving that state is NOT healthy for the child.
You have an obligation as a parent to challenge your society to do that for your child. If it does not, then you have a duty to find a way to fill in the gap created and if any damage is being done to your kid’s creativity, you must take steps to stop it.
This is what I have been doing for my kids, and I will continue to do it for them, showing them what matters, until I am sure they can carry on by themselves, taking necessary protective measures to preserve their creative genius.
RELATED ARTICLE: [Workshop for Kids – by a Kid] Build Your Own Battery Powered Toy Bike!
What is your child’s genius? Do you know?
Many parents do NOT know that schooling is a means to an end, and NOT an end in itself.
That’s why they focus so much on “schooling” their kids, and pay little or no attention to EDUCATING their kids in readiness for real world relevant success outside school.
This is why we have so many people who leave school with brilliant grades and go on to struggle to make impact in life.
It is why (as Robert Kiyosaki notes in his book) we see C students becoming more successful and employing A students after they all leave school.
It is also why we see UNSCHOOLED persons or school drop outs doing far better in the real world than their schooled counterparts.
I argue, as a Best Practice Parenting Advocate, that a parent’s NUMBER ONE role in giving his/her child an education is NOT to pay school fees, uniforms, textbooks etc. Neither is it to pay for access to summer school and exams.
[Workshop for Kids – by a Kid] Build Your Own Battery Powered Toy Bike!
The knowledge and understanding of subjects has no moral purpose. It may lead to discontent.
Education is not about ‘preparation for life’. Nor is testing about ‘preparation for the tests of life’. Education is not ‘about’ anything except education. Debates, lectures and discussions with the title ‘What is education for?’ are popular, but they embody an instrumental mistake about the nature of education: education is not for anything. It is an end in itself. If all the problems of economic and social life were solved and people did not even have to work, we would still seek knowledge. This is encapsulated in Socrates’ vision of eternal life as an endless series of conversations and debates with the greatest thinkers.
Read full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/our-voices/battle-of-ideas/education-is-not-for-anything-it-is-an-end-in-itself-8198029.html
1. Click here to learn more about this app – watch demo videos etc
2. Click here to watch a 4 part video in which I demonstrate how to use this app to formulate rations using real life data sent to me by an Algerian PhD student.
Click here to download a detailed PDF user guide and watch 15 screen shot user guide tutorials of the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager that I now offer Farm CEOs.
New posts from last week*
Monday:
[Wednesday]:
[Thursday]:
[Friday]:
Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist
*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement
Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.
Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc).
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Succeed by Emerging from Adversity Like a Phoenix
(TayoSolagbade.com launches extra Hosting plan with FREE Web Marketing!)
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Nigeria today struggles to get itself out of poor leadership and corruption driven rot, because too much poor quality thinking, and reasoning is allowed to prevail in most (NOT ALL) of the decision making levels of her leadership, as well as amongst the larger majority of the followership.
I’ve said the foregoing countless times in speaking and in my writing.
Ours is a nation that has produced MANY great minds who today have made their marks as achievers in their professional fields internationally, but who chose to use their success to play (often informal) leadership roles aimed at moving the nation in the direction of sustainable progress and advancement.
I know most of us can readily recall more than a few, but I have certain role models in mind like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Gani Fawehinmi (and others like them).
These achievers established themselves as shrewdly analytical thinkers with a knack for refusing to be hoodwinked by anyone – least of all poor thinking political leaders!
The last thing you could dream of catching them doing would be playing the psycophancy, tribalism or nepotism game. You also could certainly not depend on them to adopt illogical reasoning or depend on sentiments in coming up with their views of a way forward on any matter.
Indeed they were unrepentantly diligent at dishing out unapologetically blunt and truthful opinions on any subject. And this endeared them to the larger majority.
But most endearing was their willingness to walk their talk!
Sadly, today in everyday Nigeria, intelligent people who try to think critically and act based on intelligent logical tend to be an endangered species, and often get attacked or verbally pounded into silence by “group-thinking” mobs of often insecure others.
This is perhaps why we have much fewer people willing to step out into the limelight to play similar roles to the above mentioned heroes. Most Nigerians who fit that mould – rightly – fear that they stand to lose more than there is to gain, in today’s Nigeria, than was the case in Achebe and Soyinka’s Nigeria!
This is a major reason why we have such a paradoxical society, filled with mind boggling contradictions of human behavior.
It is is why “illogic” seems to sit so well here!
Those willing to adopt the position of logical thinkers are few. Too few. And many would rather not be known publicly.
As a result, poor thinkers have taken centre stage in Nigeria – and they use their growing influence to allow ONLY others like themselves to get through.
They know that is the only way to keep those who can expose their ineptitude OUT.
But societies that experience sustained and progressive advancement, NEVER allow people with poor reasoning capacities to LEAD her!
And they certainly do NOT permit the voting population to grow into a mass of illogical thinkers who let bias and sentiments get the better of their judgment.
If our fortunes as a nation are to change for the better, we will need to start building “a Society of Discerning Adults, Whose Leaders Cannot Fool. We MUST Teach Our Kids Critical Thinking and Logic”.
I offer below a list of websites I recently compiled, that offer guidance for parents and other adults willing to do what it needed for their kids – and even themselves as well!
© 2009-2012 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved
– See more at: http://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-critical-thinking.html#sthash.rkhGbxxl.dpuf
Teaching critical thinking? You might wonder if kids will work it out for themselves.
After all, lots of smart people have managed to think logically without formal instruction in logic. Moreover, studies show that kids become better learners when they are forced to explain how they solve problems. So maybe kids will discover principles of logic spontaneously, as they discuss their ideas with others.
But research hints at something else, too.
– See more at: http://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-critical-thinking.html#sthash.rkhGbxxl.dpuf
What kind of thinker is your child? Does he believe everything on TV? Does she always figure out how to get what she wants?
Does he ask questions? Does she go along with what her friends suggest? You can help develop your child’s critical thinking skills by learning a few key guidelines!
Whether your child is just starting summer vacation or in the midst of the school year, parents can help keep minds active in fun ways. Critical thinking skills don’t fully develop until adolescence, but the foundations for good thinking develop in younger children.
http://www.rootsofaction.com/critical-thinking-ways-to-improve-your-childs-mind-this-summer/
In our homeschooling, I teach Logic as a separate, stand-alone subject, in addition to working it into other topics whenever possible. But even if your kids go to conventional schools, it’s important (and great fun!) to teach Logic at home. Teaching our kids to think critically about what they see, hear, and read is key to guiding them into becoming adults who think for themselves.
https://geekdad.com/2013/09/teach-kids-logic-illustrated-book-bad-arguments/
Critical thinking skills are skills that children (and adults) need to learn to be able to solve problems. This includes analyzing and evaluating information that is provided, whether that information is through observation, experience or communication. The core of critical thinking is being responsive to information and not just accepting it. Questioning is the most important part of critical thinking. It is a part of scientific, mathematical, historical, economic and philosophical thinking, all of which are necessary for the future development of our society. Here are a few ways to teach critical thinking that can be used whether you are a teacher or a parent.
All first year students at the University of Technology Sydney could soon be required to take a compulsory maths course in an attempt to give them some numerical thinking skills.
The new course would be an elective next year and mandatory in 2016 with the university’s deputy vice-chancellor for education and students Shirley Alexander saying the aim is to give students some maths “critical thinking” skills.
This is a worthwhile goal, but what about critical thinking in general?
