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Chapter 10

Permalink for this paragraph 0 And so, time passed.  Ghadshyk taught the teachers, as quickly as he could, how to teach, and how to reasonably create curriculum for each student’s individual strengths instead of just how to design curricula for Larry.  While this led the staff to basically move Larry through all the material normally covered in public schools over the entire course of middle and high school before the end of the term, it also helped them with the other students.  Except for a few students who refused to do anything at all, even to listen to the teachers on the rare days they showed up at all, every student in each of those teachers’ classes showed not only a marked improvement in their grades, but also in their interest and retention of the material they covered.  Then the other teachers at the school met with the teachers that Ghadshyk had met with, and they shared the ideas, the passion, and soon it had spread through the entire school.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Students suddenly wanted to be at school, and suddenly had a passion for studying and understanding things in the new ways that had been shown to them.  When end-of-quarter grades were posted, there was an average increase of two letter grades for the entire school, and attendance issues had dropped to almost zero.  The district office took notice, and sent out several people to investigate the matter discretely.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 The passion for learning spread like a disease to the investigators.  Just a few hours within the walls of the school and its hundreds of people so burning with the same fire was enough to open up anyone’s eyes to what had been missing for so long from the entire system of education.  Very quickly, Larry was not a special case any longer, but another forgettable student in a sea of special cases, which suited Ghadshyk and Larry just fine, allowing them to settle into a comfortable rhythm without fear of anyone investigating Ghadshyk directly.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 They discussed it once or twice, first when this new passion for learning and life spread to the entire district, changing how every school for miles around was taught, and then again, only a couple of short months later, when it came into the national spotlight.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “This has truly gotten out of hand now, Larry.  According to CNN.com, they’re holding a national conference here in town next week, and apparently just about every school in the nation has shut down to send their entire staff to learn what’s made education so powerful out here.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “But they’re doing it unselfishly, Ghadshyk.  No one is the leader of what can only be called a movement; everyone is working to help everyone else.  Most of those educators are flying or driving out at the expense of donations alone.  The conference space and hotel space has been offered at rates that barely cover operating costs.  There is no fee to attend, there are no headlining speakers, it’s just people getting together to help out other people.  To share their newfound passion for learning and for the community they’re building.  It’s unlike any human endeavor in history that I’m aware of.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “That’s exactly the problem, Larry.  This behavior is not human.  It isn’t just about you and I getting found out anymore, Larry, it’s become something more complicated than even I had foreseen.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I don’t understand, Ghadshyk.  What’s the problem?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “If this continues spreading as it has done here, first on a national, then perhaps an international level, not just to teachers and children in schools and college students, but to adults, imagine the results.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Well, if my parents are any indication,” mused Larry, “then instead of allowing time to pass as though a burden, filling their hours with things they don’t care about, oblivious to anything outside of their routines, they’ll begin to seek after their passions with a newfound energy, re-learning things they had long ago dismissed as part of their rote education and finally appreciating them with their full depth of beauty.  Did I tell you that I walked into the house the other day to discover my mother weeping over a copy of Betty Crocker’s cookbook?  She said she finally understood where Betty was coming from.  Is that even possible?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Yes, Larry.  No matter what someone creates, whether it is a work of non-fiction or fiction, art, poetry, or even just recipes, they imbue it with a part of themselves.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I didn’t think Betty Crocker was a real person, though.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “But someone wrote those recipes, Larry.  There’s a good possibility that many of the recipes in the book really do come from the original recipes of only one or two women, and that is probably who your mother has come in contact with.  The same way you came in contact with Francis Bacon while reading some of Shakespeare’s plays, and you knew right away you were not reading something by the same man.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “That was totally unexpected.  Do you think mom knows the difference?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “The difference from what?  When you noticed the difference, it was from one author to another; who does she have to compare the recipes with?  What other works by the same author?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I guess I…”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “But what else has happened to your parents, besides reading more and becoming impassioned about making use of their lives while they’re still living?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Well, my dad has said he wants to quit his job and go back to school again to study to be an architect.  And mom already left her job as a paralegal to pursue the culinary arts.  They told me that ‘times would be tough’ but that we’d have to struggle through.  I suppose that if that’s really happening all over, and if that spreads to a national scale that people all over will quit their jobs to go do what they want to do instead, right?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “That’s right.  Eventually a natural balance will be reached again, and everything will be at equilibrium, but with such a rapid shift, many industries will be hard-hit, especially service-related and less-desirable jobs.  People who have not yet been touched by ‘the passion’, as they’re beginning to call it in the media, when faced with longer waits, poorer service, business closings, trash pile-ups, and whatever else goes awry during the transition may create a backlash that spreads to the recently-impassioned and to those who have been at it the longest.  Smaller problems have caused major, irrational changes in human culture in the past.  Thank about book burnings, all over again.  Think about education being outlawed, think about government-mandated multi-year notice periods required for anyone who wants to leave a job, and think about how much further people might be willing to go if the upset becomes big enough and the vast, sweeping changes to the nature of every man, woman and child are not fast enough.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “How did dragons do it?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “That happened before my time, but really it has to do with the scale of the society.  When dragons really began to accrue such wisdom and to create a society in which it was fostered by every member and taught to every new dragon born, we were only a few hundred dragons total.  You’ve seen how fast a few hundred can embrace these ideals and run with them.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “But in America alone…”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “That’s right, there are over three hundred million people living in America.  If ten percent of them leave their jobs in two weeks, that’s thirty million jobs not being done.  If fifty percent of them leave their jobs within the next six months, that’s probably around a hundred million jobs not being done as people need to be re-educated and then find the jobs they’re looking for.  That’s one hundred billion dollars of new debt created as more and more Americans dig past their savings to keep their bills paid.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “When one child, or even a school full of children, get a change of perspective like this, it doesn’t effect the world today, it effects it in ten or fifteen years when they all go directly to doing what they most want to do with their lives and are happy.  Productivity goes up, satisfaction goes up, and for that one, or those few hundred people, there is no disruption, only an increase in their future quality of life.  If this was somehow restricted to the youth of America and the retired, it would not cause more than a hiccup for the economy of the nation and the stability of the world, but already there are more adults learning in this town than children.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “For a child in school to spend day after day studying, totally happy to be absorbed in learning, this is a blessing.  For working-class adults and businesses all around, it is no picnic to have their employees trying to reschedule to take classes or to quit entirely.  To have productivity drop as their employees spend on-the-job time learning other things or discussing math or philosophy with co-workers instead of getting things done.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “But won’t productivity go back up once the jobs are filled with people who are passionate about them?  With people who have earned a thorough knowledge of every aspect of their job before even approaching it, instead of people who want to be doing something else and are just doing what they have to do to get by?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Sure, but how soon will that be?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Well, aren’t there probably already a lot of people working at jobs they enjoy at least a little?  Wouldn’t they become more productive and efficient and useful because of their increased ability to see the big picture and to apply their skills in a more useful way?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Not as many as you’d think, considering people spend forty or more hours at their jobs every week.  Americans are notoriously bad at actually doing what they want to do, instead of focusing on what they believe they must do to someday achieve some far-off dream.  It isn’t about achieving success, but aspiring towards it here.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I can’t disagree with you on that one, Ghadshyk.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “It’s a big part of why this is known as a passion.  It really has to do with being able to see what’s really going on, to understand a subject or idea with all its depth, and to better understand oneself and one’s place in the greater context.  But since so many people have never had more than a glimpse past their perceived roles in the world, this new view of reality and possibility makes them awaken to the fact that instead of just wanting what they want, they can go get it, too.  That is a very powerful drug for many people.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Is there anything we can do to slow it down or speed it up or in any way help prevent certain doom?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I don’t know of any way.”

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