William Online Education

Q: I am thinking about starting my own business, but statistics show that most new businesses fail. Why do you think most businesses fail?

A: This is the column that probably gets me kicked out of the entrepreneurial chapter of the Priory of Scion. I look silly in those long robes anyway, so here goes.

A thousand apologies to my entrepreneurial brothers and sisters, but. I think the more important question is: do businesses fail or does the entrepreneur in charge of them fail? I have to be honest and tell you that I think most business failures must be laid at the feet of the person in charge.

Sure, there may be contributing factors to the demise of a business, such as a huge chain store moving in next door, a down economy, the lack of qualified employees, new government regulations, the failure of a strategic partner, etc., but any entrepreneur worth his salt should see such things coming and make adjustments to weather the storm.

And the truth is sometimes the storm can’t be weathered and you have to abandon ship. Is that a business failure or an entrepreneurial failure? I think the coin flips both ways.

Starting a business is never easy and the fact is approximately half of all small businesses fail within the first four years, with a large percentage of those failures occurring in year one.

There are many reasons why businesses fail, but according to a 2003 survey by U.S. Bank, the majority of business failures can be attributed to three reasons: bad management, bad financial planning, and bad marketing.

The survey showed that seventy-eight percent of the business failures examined were due in part to the lack of a well-developed business plan and a business owner who had no business being in the business he was in.

In other words, the business owner did not have the adequate knowledge or a thorough understanding of the business he had chosen to start. This is why software entrepreneurs like me don’t start shoe stores. I have feet, I wear shoes, but that’s not enough to qualify me to go into the shoe business.

Seventy-three percent of the businesses surveyed were also managed by owners with rose colored calculators. These optimistic entrepreneurs over-estimated revenue and under-estimated cost.

Seventy percent of the failed businesses were led by entrepreneurs who were in denial regarding their own competence, or more to the point, their own incompetence. These business owners either didn’t recognize (or more likely chose to ignore) their own entrepreneurial shortcomings. These entrepreneurs also did not seek assistance from others who might have made up for their inadequacies. It’s hard to ask for help when you are supposed to be the one with all the answers. It’s harder still to lose your life savings when your business tanks.

The final contributing factor to the death of sixty-three percent of the businesses who died from bad management was that the owners had no relevant or applicable business experience. Just because you eat at McDonald’s does not mean you’re qualified to manage one.

Bad financial planning was the second reason why most businesses fail. According to the study, eighty-two percent of the business failures studied reported poor cash flow management as a contributing factor to the death of the business.

Seventy-nine percent of the businesses were inadequately funded to begin with and seventy-seven percent miscalculated the cost of doing business. In other words, they failed to take into account all of the costs involved when setting the price for their products.

Bad marketing was a contributing factor in the death of sixty-four percent of the businesses surveyed. Many of these misguided entrepreneurs either minimized the importance of marketing and promotion or ignored it totally.

A vital part of marketing is knowing who your competition is and always knowing what they are up to. The entrepreneur who ignores his competition is a fool (gee, was that too harsh?) and is always destined to fail, as proven by the fifty-five percent of the dead businesses in the survey who either didn’t even know who their competition was or simply chose to ignore the competition altogether.

Here’s a nice hole in the sand for you, sir. Please insert your head

Another mistake made by forty-seven percent of the deceased businesses was that they relied on just one or two customers for the bulk of revenues. This is a common mistake made by many business owners who devote all their energy to one huge client. What they don’t seem to understand is that if that one customer goes away, so does most of their revenue.

Moral to the story: before diving in you should know the industry, know the market, and know the competition. You should also leave your ego at home, ask for help when you need it, be realistic with the finances, and go out of your way to tell every person on the planet about your product.

Will that guarantee the success of your business?

Not at all, but it sure can’t hurt.

Here’s to your success.

Tim Knox
Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker
Tim is a nationally-known small business expert who writes and
speaks
frequently on the topic.
For more information or to contact Tim please visit one of his sites
below.

http://www.dropshipwholesale.net

http://www.smallbusinessqa.com

http://www.timknox.com

As a homeschooling parent of a child with autism, I am often asked, “How do you do it?” It takes dedication, planning, and research, of course, but I find that it is not all that difficult when I remember why I do it.

There are 5 primary reasons why homeschooling is the best option for my child:

1. One-to-one instruction provides for optimal learning. It is a generally-accepted educational principle that the lower the teacher-to-student ratio, the more effective the teaching can be. Most parents realize that the more students a teacher has, the less attention and direct instruction each student will receive from the teacher. One-to-one instruction is always preferred for private lessons or tutoring because the lessons can be customized to the student’s ability in order to maximize their progress in the shortest amount of time.

Homeschooling or private tutoring offers a child with autism the opportunity to make the most of their learning potential. The child receives more direct instruction time, immediate feedback, and teaching that is tailored to their learning style and strengths. Due to the individualized instruction he or she receives, the child with autism is able to experience success on a daily basis which helps improve their self-esteem. Feelings of success are something that many children with autism do not experience in a typical school setting.

2. The environment can be adapted to the child’s sensory needs. In a home setting, it is much easier to control the learning environment. Unlike a classroom situation where other students can be a big distraction from learning, homeschooling parents can structure an environment that is best suited to their child’s needs. Whether it is a quiet room, special lighting, background music, or breaks for sensory issues, the home can be an ideal educational setting.

3. Homeschooling offers flexible scheduling. With fewer distractions and more direct instruction, home-schooled students require less of their time to be spent on schoolwork. There is no time wasted on the taking of attendance, class announcements, student reprimands, repetitive teaching on a subject the student has already mastered, etc.

The school day can also be planned around the child’s best time for learning. Some children with autism are “night-owls” by nature and have a difficult time going to bed early and getting up early for school. We can adjust our hours of instruction to correspond with the times that the child is naturally most alert and able to focus. We can also schedule shorter learning sessions throughout the day with plenty of breaks as needed. Shorter sessions also promote greater intensity and concentration on academic tasks resulting in the child retaining more of the material being taught.Most parents quickly realize that another benefit of homeschooling is the fact that you can plan field trips during the week when places are less crowded. This is a big advantage for children with autism who may not do well with large groups of people.4. The child has a better opportunity for positive socialization. All socialization is not beneficial for our children. In schools, you must take the bad with the good. In a home setting, parents have more say in determining when their children are ready for specific social situations. For more on the topic of schools and socialization, see my article entitled, “Social Skills and Autism – Where’s the Best Place for Socialization?”

5. The child’s interests can be incorporated into their schoolwork. Anything that your child is interested in can form the basis for their studies. In homeschooling circles, this is referred to as unit studies. You take any topic of interest and design a complete educational program around that topic. This approach works well for reluctant learners who say that school is boring.

For my family, homeschooling is a great time-saver that allows us to focus our attention on constructive social opportunities, educational field trips, and practical daily living skills. We don’t have to worry about which teacher our child is going to have every year nor do we have to spend most of the year trying to help the teacher “get to know” our child and their needs. We don’t have to fight the school district for services or for the correct implementation of services that were promised. We don’t have to waste our time going back and forth to school or to school-related meetings. Simply put, homeschooling offers my son with autism a method of instruction that works efficiently and effectively to enable him to achieve his highest potential.

Mary Gusman is an educational consultant and an expert in the area of home-schooling children with autism. With over 8 years of personal experience home-schooling her own son with autism, she offers nationwide educational and home school consulting services to families with special needs children. Mary can be contacted via her website at http://www.ochomeschooling.com/specialneeds

There are a variety of methods that can be applied in the area of homeschooling. The method you select will have an impact on the curriculum and style of teaching. The following are some of the most popular homeschooling methods.

The Charlotte Mason method is named after Charlotte Mason, who is known as the originator of the homeschooling movement. She herself was a homeschooler, and she wanted to establish a basic plan for a complete and effective homeschooling program. The Charlotte Mason method emphasizes poetry, fine arts, classical music, crafts, and classical literature. This method is designed to encourage an awareness of literature and involves reading to the child every day. The child is then asked to tell what he or she has heard. This starts at the age of six. By the age of ten, the child is expected to write narrations in a book. Mason encouraged the use of nature diaries as well. The child writes observations of nature in the book as well. This creates a sense of respect for the environment in the child. Mason thought that good behavior and character were critical for a child’s complete personality development.

The Eclectic Homeschooling method is a combination of several techniques. Innovative parents rely on their own judgment to select topics that make up the curriculum for their own child. These parents are always looking for the best products they can find to help them meet the needs of their home schoolers. Many of the curricula in this method are improvised. This means that, while the basic curriculum is established, parents change it to adapt to the individual needs and interests of their children. The curriculum is generally established according to the temperament, learning style, and interests of the children. These programs typically include visits to libraries, factories, and museums.

John Holt, a public educator in Boston, developed the ‘unschooling’ method. Holt believed that children learn best when they learn at their own pace and are guided by their own interests. He wanted to ‘unschool’ the child by requiring parents to take their cues from the children. This approach has no set curriculum, schedules, or materials. It is the most unstructured of the homeschooling techniques.

The Montessori method had its start in Italy. It was found that children go through extremely sensitive periods in which they experience periods of intense concentration. In these phases, children will repeat an action until they receive some measure of self-satisfaction from it. This method relies on prepared environments to facilitate learning. All materials utilized in this method are meant to satisfy the child’s interior desire for spiritual development. Materials for this method range from simple to complex, and they are relatively costly.

Whatever method is selected, the underlying concept is flexibility and a strong interest in the child’s own desires. The key is to use children’s desire for knowledge to further their education.

To learn more about education and learning visit http://total-education.com

I. The Three Intuitions

IA. Eidetic Intuitions

Intuition is supposed to be a form of direct access. Yet, direct access to what? Does it access directly “intuitions” (abstract objects, akin to numbers or properties – see “Bestowed Existence”)? Are intuitions the objects of the mental act of Intuition? Perhaps intuition is the mind’s way of interacting directly with Platonic ideals or Phenomenological “essences”? By “directly” I mean without the intellectual mediation of a manipulated symbol system, and without the benefits of inference, observation, experience, or reason.

Kant thought that both (Euclidean) space and time are intuited. In other words, he thought that the senses interact with our (transcendental) intuitions to produce synthetic a-priori knowledge. The raw data obtained by our senses -our sensa or sensory experience – presuppose intuition. One could argue that intuition is independent of our senses. Thus, these intuitions (call them “eidetic intuitions”) would not be the result of sensory data, or of calculation, or of the processing and manipulation of same. Kant’s “Erscheiung” (”phenomenon”, or “appearance” of an object to the senses) is actually a kind of sense-intuition later processed by the categories of substance and cause. As opposed to the phenomenon, the “nuomenon” (thing in itself) is not subject to these categories.

Descartes’ “I (think therefore I) am” is an immediate and indubitable innate intuition from which his metaphysical system is derived. Descartes’ work in this respect is reminiscent of Gnosticism in which the intuition of the mystery of the self leads to revelation.

Bergson described a kind of instinctual empathic intuition which penetrates objects and persons, identifies with them and, in this way, derives knowledge about the absolutes – “duration” (the essence of all living things) and “

Do your children ask during school hours if they can take just a little, teeny five-minute break? Mine do. I’m not sure how they came up with the idea that they are entitled to do this (probably the first time they tried it, and it worked!), but they insist that five-minute breaks should be a part of every home-schooling day. Lunch and recess? No problem. Five-minute breaks? Beware!

So,what’s terrible about a little five-minute break? The problem is, they somehow turn into fifteen-minutes or more, and then you find out that in addition to growing longer (all by themselves), they are also addictive! Yes, first it was just one five-minute break a day. But soon the requests changed to “When I finish my math can I take a five-minute break?” “When I’m done with spelling, can I?” And then reading, and on and on. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if I opened a teacher’s manual and saw the instruction: “STOP NOW FOR A FIVE-MINUTE BREAK.” Why not? They seem to be everywhere.

Okay, five minutes is not a lot of time. I realize that. The problem is that kids do not. Really. To them, being granted permission for a break is like getting a key to a magical door to another world: they step into it hoping they will never have to come back. Take my oldest son, for instance.

Hungry for his next five-minute “fix,” Brian’s eyes, which are large anyway, suddenly take on beagle proportion, and he puts on all the puppy-dog pathos he can muster. (Please, Mom, p-l-eeease, can I take a 5-minute break?) And despite the five minutes stretching into ten or more, I am then subjected to a barrage of complaints such as, “Oh, already! I just started playing with Matt! It can’t be five minutes already!”

ME: Well, actually, it’s FIFTEEN minutes!

BRIAN: (laughingly) Fifteen minutes? No way! No way!

Despite his blossoming skills at telling time, he just cannot fathom the realities of a sixty-second minute. Somewhere in the mysterious regions of his just turned seven-year-old brain, he thinks of five minutes in terms of seconds (300 of them) and then expects to live them out in years; What else can account for his daily baffled expression when I inform him that his time is up?

Once, losing all patience, I made the radical move of threatening to abolish five-minute breaks from our school. My children were in arms instantly:

ME: Where is it written that you must have five-minute breaks?!

THEM: Mom! EVERYONE has five-minute breaks!!

ME: I don’t! I never get a break! What about that?

(For some reason, this morsel of truth never evokes anything other than sheepish smiles: It’s true, but they don’t care!)

Of course, I do take breaks. I nurse the baby when she’s ready for it, but I keep within ear shot of the “classroom”–just close enough to keep up my stream of “Okay, no more talking! That’s enough! Be quiet, you two! Brian, did you finish ALL those spelling words? Kaitlin, I thought you were reading!!”

(It seems the closer we get to the end of the school year, the more my children suddenly have to say to each other across the table during school. It’s actually a law of the universe, like gravity: The closer kids are to being DONE with something, the more they drag it out.)

Are you thinking that our methods are not enough fun, that school shouldn’t be such a drag that kids can’t wait to get away from it? I agree. I just haven’t figured out, yet, how to complete all the requirements of the school year in a way that is always fun.

Learning, let’s face it, is sometimes hard work. Perhaps in some ideal world (and maybe in some ideal homes), it’s always fun, but that isn’t the case in my experience or our school. My kids show me they enjoy learning by all the spontaneous inquiries they make, reading they do, and so on. The trick, I suppose, is to encourage their natural curiosity with the right amount of work, while trying not to overwhelm them in the areas in which they are not naturally inclined.

Until I get that right, however, I’ll just have to live with the five-minute break. Only for now on, I’m setting a timer!

Linore Rose Burkard writes Inspirational Regency Romance as well as articles on Regency Life, Homeschooling, and Self-Improvement. She publishes a monthly eZine “Upon My Word!” which you can receive for FREE by signing up at her website quickly and easily. For her latest short story check Here Ms. Burkard graduated from the City University of New York with a Magna Cum Laude degree in English Literature, and now lives in Ohio with her husband and five children.

American small business is again in transition. Many employees, now working from home, are no longer tied to a geographic office and the woes of commuting. This is a relatively new phenomenon with hints of explosive sector growth in the days ahead. As this turbulent economy has forced downsizing, offshore restructuring and closures in large companies, many new entrepreneurs have been born. These are people, who instead of tirelessly attempting to find new employment and possibly enduring the same fate as previously experienced, are now starting small businesses and enjoying the benefits and perils of self-employment.

There’s an old story telling of an Admiral’s decision to fight a battle against overwhelming odds. It seems that he was approaching the coast of an enemy land, with a larger naval force closing in from behind and a great army approaching from the land ahead. He prayed and then addressed his men. He announced that their battle weary forces would land on the beach ahead, dig in and prepare for the upcoming battle. There was no turning back and no other alternative. He ordered their ships burned after they landed. Their only choice was to fight to win or perish. They defeated their enemy because he eliminated any other escape route. They were fixed on the goal of survival and none other.

That is the same attitude we as entrepreneurs must take. We can not afford to be denied. We must grow and prosper or our business will surely perish. We must constantly be looking for ways to cost-effectively market our business and increase sales. We must control costs and have sufficient cash flow for daily operations. Each of us must be persistent, relentless and vigilant. As CEO, we are the manufacturer, the sales team, the marketing department, legal office, accounting office, human resources manager, IT manager, the webmaster and so on. We can’t afford to be all these positions. Our job is to sell! We must locate cost effective resources to help us grow and protect our investment in our business.

The growth of the internet has changed our marketplace as well. Years ago, a small business owner decided upon a geographic chunk of the market and set up shop. Today, that shop is typically located in an office at the entrepreneur’s home. The marketplace is now the world. The costs of marketing products and communicating worldwide are so low that almost anyone can take part in this revolution. Sophisticated voice mail, cell phones, email and effective ecommerce web sites now provide the illusion of size and grandeur for even the smallest home-based business. The end customer typically has no idea whether their supplier is local or across the world. He may be dressed in a shirt and tie or in his pajamas! All that typically matters is that the exchange of product and services is successfully made for a profit.

It is critically important for the small, home-based entrepreneur to be aware of resources available to her as she makes this great leap. Too many people leap prematurely into business only to fail because of poor planning and insufficient financial resources. Do not get caught in this trap. Don’t quit your day job until you have enough cash on hand to pay the bills for at least a year into your new venture. Become aware of and develop the resources available to you. You want everything possible going for you as you make this leap of faith into the entrepreneurial world.

Here in South Carolina, we have the outstanding Women’s Business Center (http://www.scwbc.org), a division of the SCMEP, South Carolina Manufacturers Extension Partnership (http://www.scmep.org), one of the best kept secrets available to businesses at all levels in our State. Other States have similar programs modeled after ours. These are incredible resources, partially funded by the State and private resources, available at little to no cost to entrepreneurs, with the purpose of aiding the successful growth of small business. Some additional national resources are:

http://www.nationalbusiness.org

http://www.nase.org

http://www.gosmallbiz.com

http://www.empoweringbiz.com

http://www.nfib.org

http://www.qualitybusinessdirectory.com

There are also numerous magazines devoted to small business, home-based business, marketing, sales, accounting, etc Get tuned in to these and other resources available to you. Read your industry publications to stay abreast of competition and other facets of your business interests.

A single legal issue, FACTA problem, accounting error or marketing miscue can put you out of business. In the case of FACTA, insufficient security or poor record-keeping these days could find you legally responsible for a single employee’s identity fraud issue, which may end up being very costly. A single lawsuit or vendor dispute can shut you down. Many entrepreneurs are ignorant, ill-prepared and under-schooled with regard to these and other issues. Do not get caught in the deadly ignorance trap.

There is more opportunity available today than ever before for the wise entrepreneur. Get all you ducks in a row before you make the fateful leap into the new world marketplace. Be smart, learn all you can as quickly as possible and take action on your ideas. Like the Admiral, be determined to win in the face of what may appear to be overwhelming adversity.

Daniel Sitter is the author of the breakthrough e-book, Learning For Profit, the revolutionary how-to book providing simple, step-by-step instructions to teach people exactly how to learn new skills faster than ever before. It’s currently available from c|net’s download.com, the author’s web site http://www.learningforprofit.com/ and a variety of online book merchants. Mr. Sitter is a contributing writer for several online and traditional publications. His expertise include sales, marketing, effective learning techniques, self-improvement and general business interests.

Why is it that one person enjoys math, while another person hates it?

Why does one child happily and quickly calculate a simple sum, while another won’t even attempt it because they’re convinced they’re simply “no good with numbers”?

The problem certainly isn’t caused by lack of intelligence.

In fact there are many examples throughout history of seemingly “stupid” people who could do amazing things with numbers.

Take the case of Jedediah Buxton (1702-1772), an illiterate laborer who became famous for his number skills. His employer once asked him:

“In a body whose 3 sides are 23,145,789 yards, 5,642,732 yards, and 54,965 yards, how many cubical eighths of an inch are there?”

Before giving the answer, Buxton asked “which end” of the 28-digit answer he should start at, as he could recite it just as easily forwards or backwards!

Of course, mathematical prodigies are born, not made. But it does beg the question:

“If somebody who can’t even read or write is able to perform these kinds of breathtaking calculations, what stops other people from doing even simple sums?”

Clearly, something went wrong along the way.

Young children naturally enjoy numbers. And even people who now have an intense dislike for math often say they once enjoyed it.

What has happened to them is generally an unfortunate event in their past.

Perhaps they were ridiculed for a mistake they made with numbers, in front of the entire class.

Maybe they missed some crucial math lessons and never really caught up.

Or perhaps they were taught to handle numbers mechanically – when what they really needed was some explanation of why the numbers work the way they do.

Whatever the specific reason, bad experiences with numbers left an emotional scar, which developed into a phobia to keep the sufferer safe from further harm.

The point here is that if you have “math phobia” or “math block”, it isn’t a permanent state of mind.

As a perfectly normal, healthy human being, you can do math and enjoy it as much as anyone.

You can make this change yourself, anytime you want. You just need to ignore the disliking attitude and actually try manipulating a few numbers from time to time.

Start with something easy, like adding small numbers in your head, or on paper if you prefer.

Next time you get some change in the shop, check it’s correct. Or better still, reckon up the change you expect while you are waiting to pay.

Avoid perfectionism, especially in the early stages. Realize there are two ways of working with numbers: approximate and exact. Often, an approximate answer is all you need.

For example, when you pick up a grocery item priced at $3.98, just call it “four dollars”. The next thing you pick up in the shop is priced at $7.95, so call that “eight dollars”. Add them together and you now expect to pay “nearly twelve dollars”.

Try it and you’ll see how easy it is.

The cure for math phobia is to allow a few numbers back into your life. Don’t make a big thing of them, just do whatever you feel comfortable with.

To summarize:

1. Recognize you have an aversion to math, whether it’s full-blown math phobia or just a few math blocks here and there.

2. Make a conscious decision to do something about it.

3. Give yourself a regular math workout, however small to start with.

You’ll find it all gets easier, and you’ll soon enjoy math once again.

Kenneth Williams is author of “Fun With Figures”, which shows you a completely different and much easier method of doing numbers in your head. Check it out here:
http://FunWithFigures.com

Traditional school coursework does not usually make smarter or better people. Everyone needs the basic three R skills, but to a young person detail beyond that is pretty much a waste of student’s and teacher’s time as well as tax dollars. School serves as a convenient babysitter and helps to socialize children, but history, economics, physics and algebra minutia doesn’t do much more than superficially acquaint kids with some terms.

Learning that is important to living comes primarily from what is experienced. For example, love and concern from a teacher, fear of a bully and infatuation for a classmate all create indelible lessons remembered for a lifetime. On the other hand, the only lesson most kids take away after learning the Pythagorean Theorem and the date of the battle of Gettysburg is that learning isn’t fun and is a waste of time.

The sooner a person can get out of school, the better the chances for useful learning. Personal initiative, individual study, successes, mistakes, fear and pride out in the real world are the best teachers. These two volumes encapsulate the issues we face in real life and have taken me ______chapters and almost a thousand pages to cover in abbreviated form. The fact that essentially none of this material is covered in formal schooling is a testament to the failure of modern education.

Without sufficient life experience (which creates little hooks in the mind to which details can attach), or a specific need to apply information, learning just by rote goes into short-term memory (long enough to pass a test) and is then essentially lost. As mental calisthenics coursework is fine. As training for life it is woefully inadequate. Children are taught how to read (barely) but they are left unable to distinguish what is worth reading. It teaches about things, not reasons. It gives the false idea that life is scripted such that if specific do’s and don’ts are followed–papers are written and tests aced–that success will surely follow.

If in doubt about the utility of modern education ask employers whether new graduates (other than from trade schools) bring to the workplace anything other than tools they don’t know how to use. If an employer can find an employee who is motivated, eager to learn and a self-starter (all rarities), that is about the most that can be hoped for. From there the employer is faced with all the costs of trainingand pay to the employee while doing it. In the meantime schools take a big chunk out of tax dollars and teachers get good salaries and great benefits. But the students they turn out are in no way ready to hit the ground running once they find a job. Nevertheless, educators – with their absurd lecture, note-take, regurgitate pedantic – mislead students into believing that they are receiving real training that can immediately command high wages and benefits. This not only does a disservice to the student but forces employers to repair the damage and bring new graduates back down to earth.

Understandably students spending years burdened by mountains of memorization are exhausted by academic demands and feel entitled to a reward, even though they intuitively know that the majority of what they have memorized is worthless. The result is a workplace filled with overpaid, under-skilled employees. Many see their stint with education as a price paid, a reason for entitlement and a burdensome part of their personal history, not an active and engaging part of their future.

Schools should effectively and thoroughly teach the basics that everyone needs to function well in society. Very general courses should be taught in all the disciplines to give students a broad overview of what knowledge holds and to equip them for a degree of self-sufficiency – like balancing a checkbook, avoiding credit card debt and high interest, writing a clear letter, preparing meals, fixing a plugged sink, sewing, checking the car oil and air tire pressure, changing the furnace filter and so on.

This could be accomplished easily within 6-8 years of school, but beginning at an older age since too much of education is wasted on the young. School days should be shortened and not begin in the early morning when growing bodies and minds should be sleeping. By compressing school-time, teachers would be forced to hit the high points that students are more likely to retain.

Specific training for specific careers should follow these 6-8 years with lots of hands-on practical experience and emphasis on problem solving. Before a student is released into the workforce they should be able to accomplish a job with competence. As things presently are, most degrees do not signify useful skills other than book reading and test taking.

Also, interspersed in the school curriculum should be coursework in intellectually challenging topics such as philosophy, science, religion, marriage, family, metaphysics, politics, sociology, ethics, logic and all the other fields of controversy in which everyone should make a lifelong study and contribution. Such topics should be taught using basic concepts and by encouraging synthesis, original thinking and hands-on learning, not with a dull memorization format.

Most of all, students should learn that mental growth is an ongoing endeavor and a basic human requirement for happiness. Continuous intellectual growth is necessary to make oneself interesting to others, to properly function in society, and to contribute to improving the world. Education does not end with a degree, it is a lifelong process.
Unfortunately, rather than school stimulating a desire for learning it can leave a bitter after taste that discourages intellectual growth.

Teachers should be accomplished in the real-world field they are teaching and be accountable at all times. Tenure is a crazy idea as is most socialism. If there is any occupation that should be under pressure to achieve performance standards at all times, it is teaching. Instead, unlike any other career, mere time can lock in a bad teacher for a lifetime. The best formula for souring young minds on education is to force incompetent and unlikable teachers on them. Education is not about teachers and their security, it’s about properly training young minds and motivating the intellect of the next generation.

These are all nice ideas, but education is not going to change anytime soon. It is too institutionalized, governmentized, unionized and tenurized. It likes itself the way it is, very comfortable and secure for all who feed from it. Never mind whether students, the workplace and society are really benefiting from it or not.

It’s not like there is some grand conspiracy to keep education boring, irrelevant and expensive. It’s just that those who write curricula and who teach know no better and find it easiest to stay in the same groove in which they were taught. Love of children and wanting to teach are certainly important, but not enough. Students who go through high school, then college, then grad school to become teachers are still students. Students teach others how to be students, not what life is really about or how to succeed in it.

It should be a prerequisite that before any politician presumes to run society that they have had at least a decade of proven success in the real world at real jobs. Similarly, a teacher entrusted with the future of the world (children), must have lived out in the real world and proven their ability to be successful at it. Particularly should this be so at the high school and college levels. Instead, too often students or those who were incapable or nonproductive in the workplace find a home in a teaching position. We must change the aphorism: Those who can, do, those who cannot, teach. It should be: Those who can, teach; those who cannot should go do something else. One on-line university that caters to those discouraged by traditional schooling has the right idea. Their advertising for professors says, “If you haven’t done it during the daytime, you can’t teach it at night!”

Speaking of the Internet, that may be the spearhead for a solution to education because it creates a realistic alternative to the traditional classroom format. Education will not change from within because it is too comfortable with itself like all embedded institutions get to be. The free market of Internet choices may create the pressure all institutions really pay attention toeconomics. That will force the system to either become relevant and efficient or die a quiet death as their tuition resources dry up.

Parents are not above blame or absolved from educational responsibilities just because kids can be pushed off to school and taxes are paid. We should not surrender our children to an incompetent system. Home schooling or ‘unschooling’ (an actual movement you can search out on the Internet) are options every parent should explore. At the least, children should be engaged when they get home from school. They learn best by experience and example so parents who are themselves thinking people and are able to put what is being taught in school into context and to discuss and live intelligently the matters touched upon in these two volumes are the best teachers children can hope for.

For further reading, or for more information about, Dr Wysong and the Wysong Corporation please visit www.wysong.net or write to wysong@wysong.net. For resources on healthier foods for people including snacks, and breakfast cereals please visit www.cerealwysong.com.

Dr. Wysong is a former veterinary clinician and surgeon, college instructor in human anatomy, physiology and the origin of life, inventor of numerous medical, surgical, nutritional, athletic and fitness products and devices, research director for the present company by his name and founder of the philanthropic Wysong Institute. He is author of The Creation-Evolution Controversy now in its twentieth printing, a new two volume set on philosophy for living entitled Thinking Matters: 1-Living Life… As If Thinking Matters; 2-The Big Questions…As If Thinking Matters, several books on nutrition, prevention and health for people and animals and over 18 years of monthly health newsletters. He may be contacted at Wysong@Wysong.net and a free subscription to his e-Health Letter is available at http://www.wysong.net Also check out http://www.cerealwysong.com

If you know a student who utterly lacks motivation
and interest for school, keep reading. Taken from our
Quickest Kid Fixer-Uppers Books, here are
novel, unexpected ways to turnaround apathetic, bored,
unmotivated, disinterested, at risk, negative students.
Once you’ve used these methods, you may find that
you are finally working with motivated, hopeful,
interested students who recognize the incredible

value of school.

*** If Life Were This Easy: Use this intervention with
students who think your services are a waste of time.
To use this intervention, read or show one sentence
of the following text, one sentence at a time. Allow students to laugh and snicker at each sentence before revealing the next phrase. This intervention
works really well, and is fun. Enjoy!

Here’s your new, high-paying job– and you can never
be fired from it!

Here’s your new, beautiful spouse, who is always
cheerful, never sick, and has tons of money!

Hope you like your new home. It’s your dream house
and it’s paid for, and will never need repairs!

Here’s all the possessions you’ve ever wanted, and,
of course, they are already paid for!

If life were this easy, you wouldn’t need us!

*** Sign This: Use this intervention with
students who think your services are useless. This
device is especially designed for older, harder-
edged kids, and is not appropriate for younger
kids and other youth. Please be thoughtful about
using it as it is very surprising and unusual– but
powerful and effective. Be sure this device is
appropriate to your site and community.

The next time you are having students signing forms,
and completing paperwork tasks, simply include the
text from the document below in the stack of papers,
then put that paper away until another time. The
next time a student tells you for the “hundredth”
time that your school or agency is a waste, have
the child review the following contract they signed.

This rather wordy document essentially says: “I
don’t want to be allowed to do anything I like,”
(or use other similarly surprising content.) When
the child says that they wouldn’t have signed
the document if they’d understood it, you can
respond: “Then maybe we still have something
to offer you here.”

The undersigned agrees to never attempt any
participation, commitment or interest in any
event, sport, past time, etc. that is a favorite
or preferred selection. The undersigned wishes
to never perform any favored activities including
but not limited to use of electronics, telephony,
etc. for the next millennium or longer.

Get much more information on this topic at
http://www.youthchg.com. Author Ruth
Herman Wells MS is the director of Youth Change,
(http://www.youthchg.com). Sign up for her free
Problem-Kid Problem-Solver magazine at the site and
see hundreds more of her innovative methods. Ruth
is the author of dozens of books and provides workshops and training.
For re-print permission for this article, contact the author by

email (dwells@youthchg.com.)

Q: When it comes to succeeding in business, which do you think is more important: education or experience?
— Regina M.

A: Regina, have you seen the television show, Fear Factor? If you haven’t seen it you’ve probably heard about it. Fear Factor is the show where they put contestants through all sorts of pseudo-death defying feats like bungee jumping off a bridge over a pool of crocodiles and driving a car through a wall of fire (you know, the stuff we did for fun in high school).

The contestant who overcomes their personal fear factor wins the cash and prizes (usually at the cost of their dignity, but I digress).

The highlight of Fear Factor is the eating competition. That’s when contestants are invited to partake of all sorts of culinary fare. Yummy stuff like monkey brains, all manner of live bugs and spiders, moose intestines, old fruitcake (the horror!), and my personal favorite, live giant worms. At this point the competition becomes not so much who can overcome their fear actor, but who has the lowest gag reflex.

Your question makes me feel a little like those contestants, Regina, because no matter how I answer I am opening a can of giant worms that I will undoubtedly be forced to eat later.

My highly educated peers will argue that education is much more important than experience, while my highly experienced peers will argue that experience is more important. Either way, it’s worms ala carte for me.

Oh well, I’ve eaten more than my share of crow over the years.

How much worse can worms be?

It’s important to understand that the success of an entrepreneur is not measured by how much education he or she has or how many years of experience are under his or her belt. An entrepreneur’s success is measured by achievements, not words on a resume.

By definition, an entrepreneur is a risk-taking businessperson: someone who sets up and finances new commercial enterprises to make a profit. Entrepreneurs start businesses. The smart ones then hire MBAs to run them.

Let’s start with education. Is a Bachelor’s degree or better required to succeed in business? Of course not. An MBA from Harvard might give you a leg up in a job interview, but it certainly doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed in business. Nor does it automatically mean that you will be a better business person than someone who didn’t finish high school. Knowledge is a good thing – if you know what to do with it.

Perhaps it is the academic environment itself that turns mere mortal nerds into budding entrepreneurs. The late ’90s proved that college students with no experience beyond organizing a frat keg party could start businesses that would exceed all expectations.

Many would argue that the key to success for most of these ventures was that the founders (or the VC financing them) were smart enough to know that while they had an abundance of education, they needed experienced managers to really run the show.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were college students when they started the company that would become Google. They were smart enough to bring in Eric Schmidt to be chairman and CEO when the business took off. Schmidt was the former CEO of Novell and CTO of Sun Microsystems. A PhD, Schmidt is a man of education and experience.

Jerry Yang and David Filo were candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford when they started YAHOO (Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) in 1994. They brought in Tim Koogle from Motorola to run things shortly thereafter and now the company is led by Terry Semel, who previously spent 24 years running Warner Bros.

Now on to experience. Is experience a prerequisite of business success? Again, not at all. Many experienced entrepreneurs gained their experience in failed businesses, so experience does not instantly translate to success.

So, when it comes to succeeding in business, which is more important: education or experience? While neither is as helpful as a rich relative, here’s the answer that will hopefully help me avoid those worms: Both education and experience can play a large part in business success.

The more important question is can you succeed in business without one or the other, or even without both? And the answer to that one is: yes. Can I get ketchup with those worms?

Many successful businesses were started by first time entrepreneurs who never went to college. Natural talent, ambition, drive, determination, and good old dumb luck have fueled many success entrepreneurs, myself included. I don’t have a degree (I drove past a college once. It looked hard, so I kept going). Would a degree have helped make my business trek easier? Perhaps.

Then again, I know people with advanced degrees who are flipping burgers at McDonalds. It’s good experience, I suppose.

A combination of education and experience (and a variety of other things) is the best recipe for success. As the old saying goes, “There is no better education than that which comes from experience.”

In the end, it really doesn’t matter how much education, experience, talent, luck or money you have. It’s what you do with it that matters.

Here’s to your success.

Tim is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs.

http://www.prosperityandprofits.com
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.30dayblueprint.com