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• FIND YOUR NICHE

While you may need to endure some subjects you don’t enjoy at school, find the subjects you do enjoy and build upon them. Take additional classes, check out books, and see movies about the topic. Don’t let school be your only form of education. Let the world be your campus.

You should expect to have some trouble in some classes. Unless you’re an Einstein, every subject won’t be easy for you. Actually, I take back what I just said. The famous Albert Einstein actually failed math and was thought a fool for years.

If you ever get discouraged by school, please don’t drop out. (You’ll live to regret it.) Just keep plugging away. You’re bound to eventually find something you enjoy about it or something you can excel at.

I once interviewed a heavily right-brained kid named Chris who shared how long it took him to fit in at school and find his niche: Up until I went to school I was a happy child. Then kids found out that learning was difficult for me and they would point and call me names. I was slow at math, English, and grammar. I remember sitting in class one day, divided up into groups, when a girl in my group stood up and said, “I’m not going to work with that retard,” pointing to me. It made me feel terrible.

Through grade school and middle school, I could hardly read. A professional came to our home one day and after putting me through a number of tests told my mother that I would never be able to read. My mother was so angry that she told him to leave the house.

Years later, as a new high school student, I picked up a science fiction book one day, and to my surprise it was suddenly easy to read. The stories in the book stimulated my imagination and then the words weren’t words anymore but became pictures in my head. I read all the subsequent volumes and then I started to read other books and really got excited about reading and learning. I gained a big vocabulary. I started speaking better and using larger words.

It was about at this time that I began to excel at the arts. I learned that I have an incredible eye for shapes and color. I’ve become gifted with watercolor, oil, painting, drawing, and design. I can also write well. I write about my experiences. I write poetry. Toward the end of high school, I won a lot of art gallery shows and gained a lot of confidence.

• DON’T LET SCHOOL GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR EDUCATION

Grades are important, especially because they lead to future job and education options. But there is so much more to an education than grades.

My family is composed of a bunch of technical incompetents. I blame the bad gene on my dad. Several times I’ve seen him in “technically challenging” situations, like when he lifts up the hood of the car (as if he could actually fix something) or when he attempts to change a light bulb. I’ve watched how, in these tough situations, his brain literally shuts down and ceases to function. It’s a phenomenon! Being the proactive person that I am, I decided I wanted to overcome my inherited weakness and so I signed up for an auto mechanics class during my senior year of high school. I was going to learn how to do an oil change if it killed me.

Believe it or not, I got an A in that class. But I’m ashamed to admit that I hardly learned a thing. You see, instead of really paying the price to learn, I did a lot of watching and not a lot of doing. I never did my assignments. And I crammed for all the tests, only to forget what I had learned two hours after taking them. I got the grade, but I failed to get an education.

Although grades are important, becoming truly educated is more important, so make sure you don’t forget why you’re going to school.

Over the years, I’ve seen so many people sacrifice their educations for so many stupid reasons, like thinking they don’t need an education, or becoming obsessed with a part-time job, a girlfriend, a car, or a rock group.

I’ve also seen many athletes sacrifice their education on the altar of sports. I’ve often been tempted to write letters to young athletes who become so sports-centered that they completely trash school. In fact, I actually wrote one, to an imaginary athlete. Though written to an athlete, it could apply to anyone who couldn’t care less about developing their mind.

A LETTER TO AN

UNKNOWN

ATHLETE

Dear______:

I’m a big believer in the benefits of athletics. However, after visiting with you, I am shocked to learn about your attitude toward school.

You say you’re banking on a pro career and don’t feel the need for an education. I say your chances of making the pros are about as good as my dad’s chances of growing his hair back. “A youngster gambling his future on a pro contract is like a worker buying a single Irish Sweepstakes ticket and then quitting his job in anticipation of his winnings.” Senator Bill Bradley, a former NBA star, said that. Studies have shown that only one out of every one hundred high school athletes will play Division I college sports, and that the chances of a high school player making the pros are one in ten thousand.

Of the hundreds of college athletes I played with in college who hoped to make the pros, I can think of only a handful who made it. On the other hand, I can think of many who wasted their minds in the name of sports, and who were then thrown into the workforce without a chance or a clue.

I’ll never forget the time one of my teammates delivered a psyche-up speech to our team the night before we played a rival university. Having neglected his education and having never learned to express himself, all he could do was uncork a barrage of vulgarities that could have cut down a forest. In a matter of three minutes it seemed he managed to use the f-word as a noun, a verb, an adjective, a pronoun, a conjunction, and a dangling participle. I left that meeting thinking, “Man, get a brain!” Open your eyes! Your education is the key to unlocking your future.

You say you don’t like school. I say, What does that have to do with it? Does anything good in life come easy? Do you like working out every day? Does a medical student enjoy studying for four years? Since when does liking something determine whether or not you should do it? Sometimes you just have to discipline yourself to do things you don’t feel like doing because of what you hope to gain from it.

You say that you try to sit down and study but can’t because your mind begins to wander. I say that unless you learn to control your mind you won’t amount to squat. The discipline of the mind is a much higher form of discipline than that of the body. It is one thing to train your body to perform at peak levels; it is quite another to control your thoughts, to concentrate for sustained periods, to synthesize, and to think creatively and analytically.

At times saying “I try” is a lame excuse. Imagine how absurd it would sound if I asked you, “Are you going to eat today or are you going to try to eat?” Just discipline yourself to do the thing.

You say you can get by without studying, that by cramming and finding ways to beat the system you can pull out passing grades. I say you reap what you sow. Can the farmer cram? Can he forget to plant his crops in the spring, loaf all summer long, and then work real hard in the fall to bring in the harvest? Can you improve your bench press by lifting weights once in a while? Your brain is no different than your bicep. To improve the strength, speed, and endurance of your mind, you must work it out. There are no shortcuts. Don’t expect to show up one day in the Land of Oz and have the Wizard hand you a brain.

Imagine five sets of hands. One set belongs to a concert pianist who can enthrall audiences with beautiful renditions of the classics. Another to an eye surgeon who can restore lost vision through microscopic surgery. Another to a professional golfer who consistently makes the clutch shot under pressure. Another to a blind man who can read tiny raised markings on a page at incredible speeds. Another to an artist who can carve beautiful sculptures that inspire the soul. On the surface, the hands may all look the same, but behind each set are years and years of sacrifice, discipline, and perseverance. These people paid a price! Do you think they crammed? Did they beat the system?

One of my biggest regrets in life is that instead of reading 100 novels during high school, I read a bunch of Cliff Notes summaries. In contrast, I have a friend who during his teen years must have read hundreds of books. His brain can bench-press over four hundred pounds. Why, I would cut off one … no, two toes for such a brain.

If you don’t pay the price you will earn a degree but fail to get an education. And there is a big difference between the two. Some of our best thinkers were degreeless, self-educated men and women. How did they do it? They read. It’s only the single greatest habit you could ever develop. Yet few do it regularly. And many stop reading and learning when they finish school. That spells brain atrophy. Education must be a lifelong pursuit. The person who doesn’t read is no better off than the person who can’t.

You say you live for today and don’t think about the future. I say the major difference between you and your dog is that you can think about tomorrow and he can’t. Don’t make long-term career decisions based on short-term emotions, like the student who chooses his or her major based on the shortest registration line. Develop a future orientation; make decisions with the end in mind. To have a good job tomorrow, you must do your homework tonight.

The Proverb sums up the whole matter: “Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.” You seem to be saying you don’t need a brain. I say, get one!

I hope I haven’t offended you. I mean well. It’s just that ten years from now, I don’t want you to find yourself singing, as did our friend the Scarecrow: I would not be just a nothin’,

My head all full of stuffin’,

…If I only had a brain.

Think about it,

SEAN