Why ar ewenot f ixing it ?
he ever made? The most interesting part of
the story is that after he dropped out of
school, he stuck around campus and
occasionally visited classes that interested
him. He didn?t care about getting the ?credit?
for the class, he was interested in learning the
subject matter.
Bil l Gat es
Did you know that Bill Gates, the co-founder
of software giant Microsoft and ranked the
richest person in the world
for a number of years,
dropped out of Harvard in
his junior year after
reading an article about
the Altair microcomputer
in
Popular
Electronics
magazine? He and his
friend Paul Allen formed
Micro Soft (later changed
to Microsoft) to write
software for the Altair.
teachers. The problem is NOT the lack of
funding. The problem with education is what
we are choosing NOT to teach students ? or
not allowing our youth to learn. Let them
explore areas that interest them.
The irony is that our kids have told us the
solution but we are choosing not to listen
because our education system has been a
proven model for generations; therefore, we
must have this blinded trust with it.
Sir Richard Branson
Sir Richard Branson is a
self-made
billionaire
businessman. He founded
Virgin Atlantic Airways,
Virgin
Records, Virgin
Mobile, and most recently,
a space tourism company
to provide suborbital trips
into space for anyone who can afford them.
Sufferi ng from dyslexia, Branson was a poor
student, so he quit school at age 16 and
moved to London, where he began his first
successful entrepreneurial activity, publishing
Student magazine.
John D. Rockef el l er
I am sure you?ve heard of John D. Rockefeller.
Well, two months before his high school
graduation, history's first recorded billionaire
dropped out to take business courses at
Folsom Mercantile College. He founded the
Standard Oil Company in 1870, made his
billions before the company was broken up by
the government for being a monopoly, and
spent his last 40 years giving away his riches,
primarily to causes related to health and
education. Ironically, this high school dropout
helped millions get a good education.
Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison,
Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Ray Kroc (founder
of the McDonald?s franchise), Mark Zuckerberg
(founder of Facebook). The list goes on and
on.
The problem with education is NOT the
6
In a recent Gallup Poll of students in grades 5
through 12, nearly 8 in 10 students (77% )
said they want to be their own boss, and 45%
said they plan to start their own business. Yet
schools offer almost no education on these
topics ? which is why so many of the greatest
entrepreneurs in our country dropped out of
school.
My goal is to share my knowledge as an
entrepreneur with my kids, to empower them
with the skill set to be able to create their own
job at will. If one of them chooses to become a
scientist or a brain surgeon, then yes, I will
help her find a way to attend college. But if
either of my kids has an idea about a product
or service that solves a problem or helps
people, I will help her flesh out that idea,
figure out how to implement an action plan,
and I may even invest in her business, even if I
believe it is a risky investment, because I
know that whether the business succeeds or
fails, the entrepreneurial education she gains
in the process is a valuable lesson they don?t
teach in college. You only learn it by getting
your hands dirty doing it with real life
consequences at stake.
As a Realtor, I see the lack of entrepreneurial
education everywhere I look. There are more
than 1 million real estate agents in the U.S. 1
in every 200 people in Idaho, where I live, is a
Realtor. Most agents don?t survive a year or
two in business. Others who have been in
business for decades still struggle to make a
steady living. The core problem is not the lack
of education opportunities in our industry, it?s
the lack of the right kind of education.
In my office, I make it a
priority to share with my
agents how to run a
business. We study other
successful entrepreneurs
and we bounce ideas off
each other. From that
practice we have not only
discovered
a
better
method of selling homes
that helps ensure our
clients net more money
when they sell their home,
but we also create happier
work/ life environments in
the process. We are agent
entrepreneurs, while most
Realtors are just salesman.
The training they get is
limited to how to get the
next sale. The training WE
focus on is how to
outperform the rest of the market. There is a
big difference.
Maybe if our education system was
reconstructed to focus more on the trades and
entrepreneurial skills, the job crisis we have in
the U.S. right now wouldn?t exist. Maybe there
wouldn?t be so many struggling real estate
agents out there if they were taught in school
how to think and operate like entrepreneurs.
Maybe we should stop thinking about what is
wrong with education and just start fixing the
things we know don?t work. I?m starting with
my kids at home and the agents in my office
? but I believe we all need to think bigger.
- Mike Tuner
P.S. I know this is a sensitive subject, but I
believe open discussion about it will only help
bring more awareness and understanding to
tough issues such as this.