People confuse *feeling* as if they care with *acting* as if they care
One of my biggest lessons in transitioning from traditional education to active, experiential learning is the difference between
reading, writing, talking, analyzing, and debating about something you care about
and
acting on something you care about.
Can you imagine a parent saying he or she cared about a child but not helping the child when the child was hurt, sick, or needed help?
Without acting, talking about values—or reading, writing, analyzing, debating, etc—have come to show me that someone doesn’t care about something.
Acting means you prioritize what you work on. It gives you a chance to love what you do.
No one can care about everything, so we don’t have to act on everything. We can’t.
But you help no one by fooling yourself into believing you care about something when you won’t or don’t act on it. It means you prioritize it below everything you do.
By assigning reading, writing, and answering questions, our schools teach students to fool themselves. The students grow into adults unable to identify their passions enough to act on them. Or to act on them enough to identify their passions.
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