Manhattan, home of Wall Street, financial sorcery, hyper-competitiveness—and tutoring for 3 and 4-year-olds.
This story is one of the saddest I’ve read lately.
That is an age when a child should spend time being a child, exploring their world, running around, creating imaginary worlds, friends, situations and enjoying unconditional love.
Instead, they are learning that to please mommy and daddy they have to get a certain teat result and get into a certain school.
…3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance — costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions — will help them win coveted spots in the city’s gifted and …read more

Steady readers of Leadership’s Future know that I am thoroughly alarmed and dismayed by the Millennial MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) regarding such mundane stuff as accountability, honesty and entitlement along with the No Child Left Behind fiasco and its focus on grades-for-funding.
Two articles caught my eye this week, both on a very positive note.
Education
The first is an overview discussing what Arne Duncan, the new education secretary, did in Chicago and wants to do nationally. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more than we’ve seen in years. Not only that, but the price tag per school isn’t that outrageous considering …read more

Not long ago a friend was at a high school basketball game; the home team, from a wealthy community, was losing to the visiting inner city team. My friend was horrified to hear the home team start chanting “We don’t care, we won’t fuss, someday you will work for us!”
He was even more aghast when he realized that many of the parents were joining in.
That’s why some schools are working to change kids’ MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) by finding ways to teach empathy; programs such as Second Step and Roots of Empathy seem to be working in the schools using …read more

Considering the news with which we’re being inundated this seemed like a god time to offer up something a bit more positive.
Not sugar and syrup that you wouldn’t believe anyway, but the kind of one liners that are worth printing out and sticking on the monitor and taping to the bathroom mirror.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and it looks like work.” –Thomas Edison (Entitlement has more letters.)
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become …read more

Perhaps ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ should be rewritten, ‘As you parent, so shall you hire.’
The generations that parented the Millennials are reaping the results of confusing self-esteem with entitlement.
The kids who sang ‘I am special / I am special / Look at me / Look at me… (set to the tune of Frère Jacques) in nursery school are still thinking that way in as they move through college and into the workforce.
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, narcissism researcher and author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled …read more

Can you imagine telling your boss that you deserve a raise because you come to work on time every day?
Or that she shouldn’t fire you for poor performance because you tried really, really hard?
Last week on Leadership’s Future a young man named Andrew started a conversation. During it he gave me a link to an article in the NY Times about student expectations.
Expectations based on that sense of entitlement which makes me nuts.
It seems that today’s students expect an A if they attend class and turn in assignments.
And it’s wrong for the professors to consider the quality of work, since …read more

I have very smart readers from all over the world. That means a variety of cultures, experiences, politics, attitudes and ages that provide a wide range of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).
I’d like to take advantage of that diversity to ask some questions.
I ask them because either I haven’t heard ideas that strike me as solving anything or because I haven’t seen them directly addressed. I honestly want a range of answers, not necessarily ones with which I agree, but a stimulating conversation! To that end I’m offering only the questions, no commentary or opinion.
I hope you’ll treat this post as …read more

A newspaper article 30 years ago talked about the initiation rites of girls who joined gangs. Previously, girls hadn’t been active members of gangs and I remember thinking then that equality was happening in the wrong places.
There was a time when attitudes and actions moved from older to younger.
But it seems that more and more, instead of children learning from their grandparents, the grandparents are adopting the attitudes of the kids and, as with girls in gangs, it’s not the good ones that are moving—it’s the worst.
Entitlement. Instant gratification.
There are thousands who knowingly bought homes they couldn’t afford (as opposed …read more