Why do I care about reforming the schools?
I was a terrible student. In grade school, I got bad grades in "conduct." I did not find school to be particularly interesting. My lack of interest in what was being taught and the way it was being taught generally led me into endless confrontations with authority. I began to doubt my own intelligence as others who were more willing to play by the rules got better grades than I did. Later, as I began to study the mind, and learned more about the way it works, and met many people who had troubles in school similar to mine, I began to realize the problems I had in school were hardly unique to me.
When my own children went to school, I watched the same thing happen all over again to them. I had, by this time, become a professor at Yale University. Even so, I realized I would still have trouble getting As in school if I were taking classes rather than teaching them. I watched what happened to my children, who entered school eager to learn, but who later became anxious, troubled, and generally discouraged by the educational system. Watching them, I became convinced that the system simply does not work.
Where am I in the content of the book?
