I’ll make this short.

It is my firm belief that whatever we focus on is what we create.   Our focus manifests itself as reality.

Focus is not the same as observation.   We can observe a thing without making it our main focus.

If we focus only on the negative, guess what we get a lot of?

To change things, we need to shift our focus.

Of course, in order to shift focus, it is often necessary to let go of long held (or even not so long held) beliefs.

Take education, for example.   Headline after headline talks about failing schools, falling test scores, rampant cheating (even, according to one cover story in this week’s New York Magazine, by teachers) the need for tougher standards, longer school years – more and more and more.

The belief upon which we focus?   Learning after the age of 4 or 5 & until the age of 18-22 can only happen in a school, but all the schools are failing and therefore learning isn’t happening.

Kids today are only ‘semi-literate’, said my new friend yesterday at the Barnes & Noble cafe.

All the focus on tougher standards and failing schools seems to have had an inverse effect on the amount of actual learning going on.

A shift in focus is long overdue when it comes to learning.   Unschoolers are ahead of our time in this regard, but I believe the world will catch up.

The alternative really isn’t worth thinking about.