“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
The S&P closed today’s trading session at $2,859. Gold closed at $1,277 per ounce. Crude Oil closed at $62.70 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.39%. Bitcoin is trading around $7,126 per BTC today.
Dear Journal,
It has been nearly two years since I’ve written. And time goes by fast.
As I write to you today, nothing has changed about my outlook or philosophy. Yet, everything has changed about my world.
My knowledge of financial markets continues to grow. As does my understanding of where finance is going.
Your neighbors haven’t noticed yet… But we are on the brink of historic change.
Traditional institutions are crumbling. Traditions and customs are being questioned. Entrenched hierarchy is being challenged. The old way is fading into the new…
In truth, this is two decades late in coming. The 20th century ended nearly twenty years ago… But it refused to die.
The dawn of the Information Age in the late 90s brought with it evolutionary change. Nobody needed the internet in 1995. Today, we each spend most of our time online. Indeed, our entire civilization depends on it.
From the way we manage our money… To the way we shop… To the way we communicate… To the way we find solutions… It has all changed.
Yet, our entrenched civic institutions have not. They fiercely resist change.
Because of that, the way we manage our communities is largely the same today as it was one hundred years ago.
Think about it… How are important decisions made?
It’s the same today as it was in 1919. People in privileged positions meet behind closed doors. Then they issue centralized orders for everyone else to follow.
There are many layers to that story. But most important to me is education.
The classroom-based model that we use today was created in Prussia in the late 1800s. It was designed to create loyal soldiers for the Prussian army. And loyal employees for the Prussian economy.
That’s what “education” meant. It had nothing to do with inspiring and empowering young people.
How did it work?
Kids were sealed off from the world and segregated by age, so they had limited exposure to outside ideas. Then they were regimented into groups and herded from one classroom to the next according to a strict schedule. One class ended, and another began, when the bell rung. That meant dropping everything and moving on within the system. No time for further exploration. No time for introspection.
And each child was to listen to teachers and obey school officials unquestioningly. Teachers were the experts. School officials were the bosses.
To get good grades, children were to memorize and repeat exactly what the teacher told them. Of course, good grades were praised and rewarded. Bad grades were shamed. That was designed to stamp out free will.
Children were to raise their hand and ask for permission when they wanted to speak, ask a question, or just go to the restroom. Everything was forbidden without explicit permission. That’s what hall passes were for. This was to stamp out independence.
Lastly, children were assigned hours of homework each night. Failure to do homework was punished and shamed. That was to keep kids from seeking knowledge on their own. They always needed to be under the school’s thumb.
The result?
Loyal soldiers and loyal employees who would act upon orders without question. They saw themselves as inferior to their institutions. And, absent the ability to seek their own meaning in life, they sought comfort in their institutions. To belong to an institution was to be a part of something “bigger than” themselves.
This system came to the U.S. in the mid-1910s… And it was forced upon the populace by compulsory education laws. They said every parent must send their kids to public schools or go to jail.
And we use that same model today. Complete with the threat of jail time.
What’s more, we are giving our kids the same advice. Go to school… Get good grades… Go to college… Get a job…
Does that make sense?
It’s the factory model. And it’s dead.
Inflation-adjusted wages have been stagnant for nearly fifty years.
Yet, student loan debt has exploded to $1.6 trillion… From basically nothing in the 1970s.
So, if you go back to the mid-1900s, wages were rising, and debt was non-existent. Today, wages are stagnant, and debt is exploding.
Yet, we are telling our kids to keep doing the same exact things.
Does that make sense?
As old readers know, I became passionate about education when my daughter was born nearly five years ago.
My passion has doubled since then as a brand-new human came to us last October.
His name is Isaiah. And his spirit radiates with intelligence and purity.
I have watched Madison and Isaiah every day. Just trying to learn. And understand.
The more I watch, the more I am convinced that human beings are brilliant by nature. Children don’t need to be “educated” by force. They certainly don’t need to be herded about classrooms like cattle.
They just need someone to light their candle and get out of the way. And maybe expose them to new ideas from time to time.
Maybe things were different one hundred years ago. Maybe scarcity made the Prussian education model necessary. I don’t know.
But I do know this… We find ourselves in a world of abundance today. Technology has conquered scarcity.
As such, loyal soldiers and loyal employees are obsolete.
And that means it’s time we change how we think about education.
-Joe Withrow
P.S. My Finance for Freedom course series pulls back the curtain on how money and finance really work. And it covers expert financial strategies to increase income, build wealth, and shatter the glass ceiling forever. Learn more at newly revamped https://financeforfreedomcourse.com/.
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