Wedication Part 2

Mar 04, 2024

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create. Our care of the child should be governed not by the desire to make him learn things but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.”

—Dr. Maria Montessori, The founder of the Montessori program and an Italian educator, physician, and scientist.

Dr. Maria Montessori opened her first school, the Casa dei Bambini, in Rome in 1907 to work with children with learning disabilities, many of whom later tested on par with or above the other kids. This miraculous achievement sparked the global spread of the Montessori approach, which now includes over 15,000 schools, with the US, China, Thailand, Germany, Canada, and Tanzania having the most significant number.

A passionate ‘get shit done’ approach to education

Our suggestions on how to improve our kids” education are based upon the premise that, ultimately, we send our kids to school with the hope they learn enough of something to add value to the world and earn a good wage. We also hope that however they land, they earn their wages doing something they feel passionate about.

Can we first agree that the primary educational goal for parents is to see their kids’ education help them develop knowledge and skills so they can be marketable enough to be economically self-sufficient—sooner rather than later? And ideally, our kids would find a way to support themselves by doing something they are very passionate about.

Zuck

Get shit done; the former Polish actor and poet, Pope John Paul II, once said, ‘We are most joyful when we are creating because we are imitating our Creator.’

There are a lot of people who come to Silicon Valley and fall in love with the idea of being an entrepreneur, but they are not willing to put in the work. We refer to them as the ‘Stand Around People’ because they stand around philosophizing while the real entrepreneurs are getting shit done. The most delusional SAPs think they somehow contribute by standing around and want to be rewarded—that is why we stay away from them.

A holistic and ‘get shit done’ curriculum
Reade write share. Read good literature, write about it, and share what you’ve learned in goups and infront of others.
Research and write about subjects your feel passionate about and want to learn more about.
Use the Khan math applications and go as far as you can as fast as you want. When you get stuck, get help getting over each math hump.
Projects and music. Create small group projects with goals and individualy assigned tasks (no SAPs allowed), to develop a framework and understanding about ourselves and the world around us. Core subjects could include: anatomy, biology, neurology, physiology, geography, US history and Constitution, physics, meteorology, astronomy, space exploration, the fine arts, etc.
Tactile projects like art, building robots and other mechanizms
Learn at least one other language via regular conversation with others every day.
Go on regular road trips with free parent drivers to go on nature hikes to learn about plants, animals and the environment, attend museums exhibtions and live performances, go to the local fire station, etc..
Parents, grand parents, and older siblings should be enouraged to come help tutor, share their skills, help prepare food and eat with the kids,. The more family presence the better.
Make their own lunches and snacks together. Learn about food, international cusine, nutrician, gardening and cooking and preparing food. a low-carb, high-fat, and gluten-free diet
Move the body: Sit mostly on the floor with propts but no chairs, with a minimum 10 minute break every hour to get up and move, stretch and do some squats.
Nutrition and cuisine, math and computer programming with no boundaries, understanding, and moving your body, get shit done group projects with specified individual responsibility, quiet-time: reading, research, writing and reporting- the 4 Rs, weekly field trips.
Brainwash my kids.

So there you go—our curriculum for ages 2.5 through 12—all week, every week. We would add no homework requirements and no grades. Kids can also play sports after school and get a good night's sleep. Reading and working on Khan math programs at home for enjoyment, faster advancement, and rewards would be encouraged.

It’s really just a modern knowledge update to the Montessori program, with a home-school vibe, whose kids regularly outperform kids from traditional education programs. It’s all about personal attention, and they are left with more free time to explore and pursue their interests independently.

Under this accomplishment and merit badge system, kids learn to compete with themselves and see ‘intelligence’ and who is ‘smart’ from a much broader, multi-faceted perspective.

Tony what is the biggest quality you look for when you hire somebody?

Warren: that’s easy. I always ask everyone how old were you when you first did something to make money?

NFT merit badges

Conclusion

Restore and build our kid’s self-esteem and mental health (and kick drugs) through programs focused on learning and achieving without being pitted in direct competition with their peers and valued and graded based upon extremely narrow criteria.

The extended robotic lockdown approach to education is unnatural for many and leads kids to prescription drugs. The testing, grading, and admission standards are very narrow and favor people with math and standardized testing skills. By one analysis, intelligence has twelve forms, which are visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, musical-rhythmic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and bodily-kinesthetic. How many of these are covered on the SAT? Today’s education system leaves a lot of brilliant people feeling not so bright.

The current educational system still favors the wealthy, has broken admissions programs, and offers mass-produced curriculums that are often ideologically driven and devoid of real-world value. And how much are we paying for this? People in the US owe $1.78 trillion in federal and private student loan debt. The ROI is not there, with so many other options to learn in more impactful ways at a fraction of the price.

Simply put, we are driving our kids over cliffs by pitting them against each other in school, creating artificial distinctions and deadlines, enrolling them in mediocre and impersonal programs, and loading them up with debt. Instead, young people could start pursuing more personalized courses and educational experiences beginning as early as 6th grade, where they are evaluated and counseled individually, and their achievements can be mutually validated and recorded on immutable blockchain applications. Learning and education are life-long endeavors where we build our transcripts all along the way by documenting all our work and educational experiences without needing central institutions to validate our achievements.

This is, of course, a vast subject that we intend to cover closely. Suicide is now the leading cause of death for 13-and 14-year-olds, having doubled in the last ten years. Things are not improving. They’re getting worse. The fact Silicon Valley has one of the highest teenage suicide rates in the US, mainly due to academic stress, only underlines how serious of a problem we are confronting. Silicon Valley is known for creating global trends; this is one we want to disrupt, not spread.

“I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent. It’s a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical.”
—Steve Jobs, in 1996 when still operating NeXT Computer

Tokenized merit badges

As always, we have a Web3 solution for this dire situation as well 🤣. But seriously, if we step back for a moment, the goal of our educational system is to impart knowledge and skills to people so they can become gainfully employed—ideally in an area they are passionate about. These institutions also serve as a way to validate transcripts and degrees.

Why all of this stress to end up at the often hoisted as the best school on the East Coast (their graduates say ‘the world’) only to find out they win the award for the most intolerant institution on the planet?

35% of kids say 4-year degree helped. Pretty much every successful Entrepreneur I know would say a 4-year college is a luxury but not necessary. It’s not an anti-learning attitude; it’s more of a ‘why pay for an ivory tower perspective when you can gain more contemporary and timely knowledge and relevant skills in the real world—and get paid!’

Kids have no time to work and do not gain the experience of being responsible to co-workers and their bosses. These kids are having a more challenging time adjusting to the work world, which gives them a poor reputation as workers.

We are happiest when we are creating because that is when we are imitating our Creator. John Paul II

Steve, You don’t have to accept things as they are.

When Apple toppled Microsoft

Steve Jobs adopted a no ‘bozos’ policy and said the best managers are those who never wanted the job—here are his three best management tips.

It’s been more than a decade since we lost Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind some of the biggest technological innovations in history. He lost his battle with pancreatic cancer in 2011 and would have been 69 years old today.

Jobs’ outsized influence as Apple’s leader left a lasting impression on managers and employees alike. But one of his most unwavering beliefs might surprise leaders who aspire to success as great as the Apple cofounder.

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When Jobs and Apple’s other cofounders, including Steve Wozniak, first realized how big their company would be, they decided to go out and hire what they called “professional management,” or folks who just knew how to manage people. But it quickly backfired.

“It didn't work at all,” Jobs said in a 1985 interview. “Most of them were bozos. They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.”

Jobs’ comment gets at the crux of a central debate in management: whether managers should actually want to be managers or not. Jobs argued the people who were least expected to be leaders ended up being the best managers in the long run. That’s because other employees were more likely actually to learn something from them. After all, they’ve mastered that skill—rather than only focusing on management techniques.

Great individual contributors make great managers.

That’s the first of Jobs’ best management tips: elevating the people to management who perform at the highest levels.

“You know who the best managers are. They're the great individual contributors who never want to be a manager but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as that,” Jobs said in the same interview.

Jobs took a gamble on Debbie Coleman, a member of the Macintosh team who was 32 years old at the time he promoted her. She studied English literature in college but earned her MBA from Stanford University and proved herself to be an exceptional financial manager.

“There's no way in the world anybody else would give me this chance to run this kind of operation,” Coleman said in a 1980s interview. “I don't kid myself about that there's an incredibly high risk—both for myself personally and professionally, and for Apple as a company—and put a person like myself in this job.”

Coleman said Apple was “betting on a lot of things” when it made her a financial manager. They were “betting that my skills and organizational effectiveness override” her lack of tech and manufacturing experience. Coleman went on to become chief financial officer of Apple and was referred to as one of Silicon Valley’s “most prominent technology executives.” She died in 2021.

Keep the company collaborative.

Another critical position held by Jobs was that Apple would be a collaborative company—and uniting his employees with a “common vision” was a central concept.

“That's what leadership is: having a vision, being able to articulate that so that people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision,” Jobs said in a 1985 interview.

That collaborative approach has continued to show itself throughout Apple’s history as Jobs long said that his company was the “largest startup” in the world.

“There’s tremendous teamwork at the top of the company, which filters down to tremendous teamwork throughout the company,” Jobs said in a 2010 interview at the D8 Conference. “Teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to come through with their part without watching them all the time.”

Recruit the right people.

Jobs took it upon himself to be heavily invested in and involved in recruiting at Apple. He wanted people who were “insanely great at what they did” but “not necessarily those seasoned professionals.”

Jobs wanted employees and managers who knew what Apple could do with technology and wanted to bring it to “lots of people.”

“The neatest thing that happens is when you get a core group of 10 great people,” Jobs said in a 1985 interview. “It becomes self-policing as to who they let into that group. So I consider the most important job of someone like myself [to be] recruiting.”

Cryptonite's top predictions for 2024...Blessed New Year to all!

The Cryptonite Weekly Rap

December 27, 2023

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Speaking of toppling totalitarian regimes

Vouch for Thyself

To achieve the Web3 dream, there must be a two-way bargain between the user and the platform. Bots are obviously a big-time problem for all social networks. Elon learned the hard way after getting basically ripped off by the last Twitter regime for grossly under-reporting the bot-created traffic that doubled the sales tag. Twitter’s value has been marked down by up to 65% by some investors.

Our bet is Elon and Boss Lady Linda Yaccarino end up doing just fine at X. He is painfully rejiggering X’s revenue model away from ad-dependence and more developing more service fees and getting more in line with Web3 thinking, while the Web2 social networks will ultimately see their users flee for more control and priavcy and be punished for their sins.

To fight off the bots, Cryptonite will require users who want to post anywhere in the network or try to connect with any other members to be validated by a blockchain-based, decentralized ID (DID) system.

A decentralized ID is a globally unique persistent identifier that does not require a centralized registration authority, and can represent anything, both abstract and natural, such as a person, an IoT device, or a robot. The technology is seen as a potential solution to digital identity management globally and across different platforms.

There are a few emerging standards and several DID projects that have raised more than $1 billion in VC funding. The number of decentralized identities worldwide is projected to reach 1.5B by 2026 and get to $5B+ by 2030. The most immediate blockchain ID application opportunities are in the finance, education, governance, and healthcare sectors.