I’ve been out of the classroom for a few years and I’m working mostly with private sector companies and conference audiences. I see firsthand how schooling impacts our performance on the job and in life after we graduate. It isn’t pretty. I’m struck by the depth of our needs for motivation, leadership, and collaboration/ team communication. Not to mention health, curiosity, meaning, and the ability to more effectively use our tools.
Understanding our minds, bodies, relationships, meaning, and tools are basic human skills. So why does generation after generation get hijacked by school rules and technology we don’t understand? We have conducted insightful research in all of these fields. Why can’t we get a basic user’s manual?
These are the questions at the core of my new book project. I’m making a case for us to redefine how we learn and integrate what we discover into our personal and professional lives. Working title: SEARCH TERMS.
I’m going to start sharing here in installments. Here’s an excerpt of the first draft introduction. Please feel free to comment via reply email. I’d love to know what you think.
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You are on a mission. You want to solve your problems, achieve your goals, and live your best life. You want to thrive, succeed, and be admired by your people. You know that learning is the best way to empower yourself. So, you head to the library across the street.
But what we discover depends on where we look. And you’re looking the wrong way.
You are confident because you are unaware, like an American on a streetcorner in London. You lift your foot to step off the curb because you think the coast is clear. Your experience and habit told you to look left, which served you well when traffic drove on the right side of the road. But now, memory is your enemy. You don’t see the double-decker bus barreling down on you from your right, driving on the left side of the street, exactly where it’s supposed to be.
I’m the guy who grabs your collar and yanks you to safety before you get crushed.
There is no time for a conversation. We won’t get to know each other, exchange niceties, or engage in ritual greetings that express our identities or establish affinity. We won’t wave to show that our hands are empty of weapons. I don’t care who you are, or whether you like me or trust me. I don’t notice what brands you wear. I don’t ask who cut your hair or whether you voted in the last election. I definitely don’t look you up online. There is no ulterior motive or subtext; no dog whistle, bro code, or acknowledgement of unceded territory. I do not empathize with your feelings or show interest in your world view. I do not even ask for your consent to grab you.
It’s too late. In less than a second the bus will hit you.
Facts: The average double-decker bus is more than 61 feet long, 8 feet wide, 16 feet high, and weighs over 13 tons. This one is bearing down on you at speed. You’re about to be street meat. A stain. And you don’t see it coming.
This is the moment in which we live. Our politics, our economy, our environment – our children – all depend on us thinking more clearly and taking action. Walking in your shoes or bringing you into my field are beautiful metaphors for empathetic connection. And right now they matter far less than saving your life.
We need each other to learn. And sometimes to stay alive. Interdependence is essential to our survival.
The problem is that we no longer know where to look for what we need. We are inundated with information but we are not better informed.
Your computer and your phone know far more about you than you know about them. Your TV’s ACR system sends screenshots to the internet every couple seconds. Your thermostat is talking about you to your washing machine. Oh, you combed through every menu and toggled every privacy control, did you? That's great. But your family and friends didn’t, and your phone’s proximity tracks, so you're identified by their searches and the restaurants you visit together.
Somewhere in Estonia a data broker clicks on your IP address and sells your entire digital life story for pennies. Our preferences, behaviors, and habits have become a commodity.
Remember the joke about the wise old fish who swims by the two young fish? “Good morning boys,” says the wise old fish. “How’s the water today?” As the wise old fish swims away, one of the young fish turns to the other young fish and says: “What the hell is water?”
We are swimming in digital and cultural waters that we do not see, much less understand. Judging by your feed and your cervical posture, you are about as prepared for the tsunami of data washing over us as you are for that double-decker bus.
(Next week: Cheer up. There is a glimmer of hope. It turns out you’re sitting on a treasure map.)
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Why did the reader cross the road? Drop me a line – I’m curious!
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Open-Source Learning is yours. Free. Get the white paper here. Use what works and customize whatever you need, however you want. I’m here to help.
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Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription.
Here is a taste of what I’m doing, reading, watching, and thinking about.
Books Unbanned –
In many parts of the country kids can't read. Not because they're not able, but because they're not allowed. The Long Beach Public Library Foundation is aiming to help. From their website: "Inspired by the groundbreaking work of the Brooklyn Public Library and others, Books Unbanned empowers teens and young adults(ages 13-24) residing anywhere in the country—outside of Los Angeles County—by providing free, unrestricted digital access to thousands of books.
Through this initiative, young people can explore stories that resonate with their experiences, expand their understanding of the world, and engage with ideas that others have tried to suppress.
If you’re between the ages of 13 and 24, and live outside of Los Angeles County, you can sign up for a free digital library card and start exploring thousands of banned and challenged books today."
Visit their website to donate and get young people connected.
What I’m Reading –
Once more, for the AI fans in the back: I’m not against digitally enhanced efficiency or possibility. What I’m worried about is the blind adoption of tools that most of us don’t understand very well. This past week I talked with a colleague who enthusiastically mentioned Chat GPT’s “agent mode.” An inexpensive, effective administrative assistant that saves you time and doesn’t tell you boring stories about their weekends? Sounds great. Right up until it takes over your software and ruins everything you ever loved.
From Gary Marcus on Substack: “Cognitive gaps in chatbots like that (to some degree addressable by guardrails) are bad enough, but there’s something new—and more dire—on the horizon, made possible by the recent arrival of “agents” that work on a user’s behalf, placing transactions, booking travel, writing and even fixing code and so on. More power entails more danger.
We are particularly worried about agents that software developers are starting to use, because they are often granted considerable authority and access to far-ranging tools, opening up immense security vulnerabilities. The Nvidia talk by Becca Lynch and Rich Harang at Black Hat was a terrifying teaser of what is coming, and a master class in how attackers could use new variations on prompt injection to compromise systems such as coding agents.”
What I’m Listening To –
Over the last few weeks I helped my parents clean out their house and I’ve been listening to their albums. Harry Belafonte’s first album. Martin Denny. Mel Torme. Jose Madeira and His Orchestra’s “Havana…2 A.M.” – released in 1957, two years before Castro…
Then I came across Elvis Presley’s first album. I had never seen the cover and it blew my mind. “London Calling” by The Clash is one of my favorite records. The cover art was a poster in my dorm room at UCLA for two years. I had no idea I was looking at a remix. Sitting in my living room, contemplating a record that shook people up in 1956, I reflected – no matter how punk we think we are, sometimes it seems we are all finding original ways to become our parents.
What I’m Designing –
One of the albums was Van Cliburn playing Rachmaninoff. Van Cliburn was a piano prodigy who achieved the single most amazing (and nonviolent) victory of the Cold War. In 1958, Van Cliburn went to Moscow and won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition. This concert will be the fourth in my Classical Concert Tees series. In the early 1970s my Dad met Van Cliburn at a mall and asked him to autograph this album to my parents and me.
Quote I’m pondering –
I’m always suspicious of celebrities who write about their lives.
– Harry Belafonte
Thank you for reading! This publication is a lovingly cultivated, hand-rolled, barrel-aged, ad-free, AI-free, 100% organic, anti-algorithm, zero calorie, high protein, completely reader-supported publication that is not paid to endorse any political party, world religion, sports team, product or service. Please help keep it going by buying my book, hiring me to speak, or becoming a paid subscriber, which will also entitle you to upcoming web events, free consultations, discounted merchandise, and generally being the coolest person your friends know:
Best,
Know someone who is also Curious AF? Please share this edition with them!
David Preston
Educator & Author
Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE
Header image: Elvis Presley LPM-1254 for identification only per Wikipedia fair use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elvis_Presley_LPM-1254_Album_Cover.jpg and The Clash London Calling album cover for identification only per Wikipedia fair use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TheClashLondonCallingalbumcover.jpg.
David Preston
