Educational systems: why are we wasting so much potential?

Sir Ken Robinson: do schools kill creativity?

Well... I wasn't feeling very inspired to write this week. Maybe because I realized we are a product of a wrong educational system. So, actually, the right feeling is disappointment. So I went to Google and did some research about this topic... And I found this video. Which made me even more disappointed, because there are more than 30 million views. So I think it would be safe to say that at least 20 million people watched the video (I'm not even considering broadcasting for large audiences, so...). And this is twice the population of Portugal! And what is more astonishing: we are still crawling to change this.

So I did some more research after watching the video. Gardner's theory of multiple types of intelligence is quite interesting, but the lack of empirical evidence made me doubt of it's scientific efficiency. It looked more like a different name for an already known knowledge that intelligence is composed by different capabilities. Just to make it clear: I'm not saying this theory is invalid; I'm saying there is a much broader theory that includes this one. And just to make an observation: who doesn't feel attracted by the idea that everyone is smart in some way? This play a big role in the acceptance of Gardner's theory... But anyway, let's move on...

The three-stratum theory

Just check the image below:

To keep this simple: the experiments made and the data collected from psychological tests, school marks and competence ratings showed some variations. Consistent, stable and observable differences. So a three-layers model was proposed, in which each lower level consists of variations and differences of the above level's capability. We could discuss the topic further, but this is not the purpose of this post. So I'll put some links here and you can access more information if you are interested.

• CHC theory;
• G-factor;
• Three-stratum theory

My point is very simple: as you may have noticed, what we call intelligence is a composition of different factor and capabilities. Even though we can reach this common factor (what we call g-factor), it still presents significant and stable variations from individual to individual. And there is potential in this variations. The problem with educational systems (at least the most used ones) is that they don't really valorize these differences. This causes a huge loss when it comes to creativity and capability development, since we might be wasting incredible talents.

I don't have much more to add beyond what is said in the video, but this is something we really need to take in consideration. Ok, I understand it's pretty hard to overcome the legal limitations and requirements already established in the educational field, but... How about starting this at home? Children and teenagers are extremely sensitive to external stimuli, and the right ones will trigger some very good changes that will bring very positive results.

Prioritizing what must be prioritized: the art of doing the right thing in the right time

So... I'm coming up with lots of ideas and insights for this blog and some parallel projects (like a website I'm developing). Every single minute a new idea pops up. And the bad thing is... they don't come sorted by topics: now I'm thinking about this post, but after two minutes I'll be thinking about my website, and after two other minutes I'll be thinking about the online course of creativity I'm taking. Not to mention all the YouTube channels and twitter follows I want to be updated about. It's too much, after all. But this shows a nice principle: I will never be with nothing to do. Only if I decide to (which is good sometimes).

Reduce steps and show what you customers want to see!

You open a website. First you check the design... It's pretty nice, filled with smooth animations that bring life to the page. The font family is also very friendly, and you feel comfortable reading the texts. You finish reading everything, but... What you were searching was not there. "Ok, cool... Usually the home page doesn't have this kind of information", you think. You are searching for prices: you want to know how much you have to pay for the service. So you see a tab saying 'Prices'. "Great! I found it!" But...

Building a strong organization through continual improvement...

So... for today I'd like to write a small post about the importance of continual improvement. There are a few topics to discuss about (such as the scale of change, the frequency, etc.) but I'll start with "the source".

Are you using all the potential the web offers for you business? - Part 1 - Introduction

I've been discovering some very interesting tools and features available for free on the web that can be broadly explored and can bring some good positive impact for your company. I'm not talking only about tools for online marketing, but also for project management and for customer relationship management, for example. But along with this, I want to bring to you some tips of how to learn to use these features and how to connect them to have a better experience.

The success has a twin brother: patience

I was about to write some mathematical equations to try to explain this to you, but it's morning now and I'm very dumb in the morning, so I'll stick to text. What I want to discuss is the importance of time. And the importance of waiting. What we see is a lot of companies trying to get results in a very short period of time. This is not wrong, but can be very wrong. And usually is. It's not surprising that almost 80% of new companies close in their first five years of operation. Why?

Being active in social networks

You have your website, your facebook page, your twitter, your g+ and whatever else. Nice! You are just like e.ve.ry.one else. Nothing more. If you don't have, you are losing space. If you have, you are just among the average. But you say you don't have much time for social media. You have to keep your business running, of course. You are busy with finances, marketing, hr and lots of other things. I'm not saying they are not important, but you should consider the social media stuff as well. Why?

What is the purpose, after all?

Let's do a useful post... So, remember I was talking in the last post about my Kindle and how useful it is? That's it: use.ful. According to my useful dictionary, useful is: 

"Able to be used for a practical purpose or in several ways."

Please guys, keep this in mind. Doesn't matter for what. If you build a website, create a template that is first useful, then beautiful. If you write a business plan, create it in a short and useful way. If you are doing a college paper, write only important and relevant things. Sometimes we meet people that like to write. So they write. A lot. Of unnecessary words.

The day I bought a Kindle

So... I bought a Kindle in mid October. Cool. New device. You unwrap it, remove the plastic film that protects the screen like some scientist running a very delicate experiment, turn it on. Enjoy the first moments touching and turning this guy upside down. In the beginning, it's not any technological god. The screen is black and white, and you can't do anything else but read books. The memory is also kinda small: 4gb. But...

5 websites to learn (good content) for free

Yes, only five. Ok, so... I've been taking some courses online about lots of interesting topics and I would like to share with you some of the sources of these courses. So no more words, let's go to the list.

What Content Marketing Has Become... And How It's Killing the Web

Since I've been working as a content writer for a website, I've been asked to write lots of posts regarding thousands of keywords. "Keyword density is too low!" was one of the things I've heard the most. So, basically, they were asking me to write keywords, not articles.

Well... I'd like to talk about how this s**t is killing the content nowadays. Companies are what? Writing to get traffic to their website. A website that is s**t... Why? Because only writes to get traffic. So... When I search for something, thousands of websites that have nothing but crap content come to me. And this is killing the way we look at content and browse the web. I mean... Try searching for some news and stuff. You will find lots of pages talking about the same thing, bringing the same information but in different websites. Just to have some "content", all websites write about what is trending now, and... well...