Must We Struggle, Part 3: Human Nature? Culture? Or a Bit of Both?

Posted on February 26, 2010 by zoeweil

There are a number of organizations that assess national happiness. There’s even a book, The Geography of Bliss, which examines different cultures and the general contentment of their population. Often the U.S. doesn’t score very high on happiness indexes, despite the fact that we’re the richest country in the world and so many people want [...]

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Must We Struggle, Part 2: My Cat, My Dogs and Me

Posted on February 24, 2010 by zoeweil

In my last post, I wrote about William James, Star Trek, and the curious need to struggle toward achievement. I live with a cat named Sir Simon. He is content to sleep most of the day, move from one sunny spot to another as the day progresses, eat at designated times, and get petted as [...]

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Must We Struggle, Part 1: William James & Star Trek

Posted on February 22, 2010 by zoeweil

I was reading an excerpt from philosopher and psychologist William James’ Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals reprinted in the February 2010 issue of The Sun magazine. I was not in the best of moods at the time, feeling down about the state of the world and about [...]

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The White Tiger: Systemic Truths Revealed

Posted on February 19, 2010 by zoeweil

I recently finished the award-winning novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga. The book is comprised of a series of letters written by an Indian entrepreneur, Balram Halwai (aka the white tiger), to the prime minister of China, about his rise from poverty to riches. Balram, a chauffeur to Ashok, confesses to murdering his employer, [...]

Filed under: books, Cultural Issues, globalization, human rights, oppression, systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Educate a Generation of Solutionaries By Transforming the Purpose of Schooling

Posted on February 18, 2010 by zoeweil

I just submitted the following to Change.org, entering their contest on the best idea for changing America. If you find this to be a good idea, I welcome your vote: Currently, the primary goals of schooling are to graduate students who are verbally, mathematically and technologically literate and who are employable. We do not educate [...]

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Re-meeting Marc: What We as Teachers Do Matters

Posted on February 17, 2010 by zoeweil

Many years ago I taught a week-long summer course out of my home to middle school students. There was a 13-year-old boy in that course who so profoundly impressed me. He was extremely bright, deeply compassionate, sensitive to others, open, reflective, and wise well beyond his years. I stayed in touch with him for about [...]

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Zoe Weil Guest Post on Eco Child’s Play: We Must Raise Compassionate, Conscientious Children

Posted on February 16, 2010 by zoeweil

Zoe has a guest post over at Eco Child’s Play, a blog focused on green parenting. Zoe’s post challenges parents to raise conscientious and compassionate children. Here’s an excerpt: “We parents can resist cultural messages that are shallow and lack meaning and deep purpose, but it is no easy task. As if raising children weren’t [...]

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MOGO Bookshelf: Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”

Posted on February 15, 2010 by zoeweil

I’m a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, and over the weekend I read Outliers. I recommend it highly. The premise of Outliers is that those whom we consider amazing outliers –- famous athletes, successful business leaders, great musicians — whether the best Canadian hockey players, Bill Gates, or the Beatles –- owe their success [...]

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Tino Sehgal and the Power of Conversation

Posted on February 12, 2010 by zoeweil

This past weekend I was in New York City offering a Most Good, Least Harm talk at the New York Open Center. Whenever I go to New York, I try to squeeze in a visit to at least one museum, and this time I went to the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim Museum was designed by Frank [...]

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Update on Complaining and Gratitude

Posted on February 10, 2010 by zoeweil

In my blog post, Ever-growing Expectations and the Roots of Complaint, I wrote this: “Later this month I’ll be flying to Vancouver, B.C., for work. I’m planning to… reflect upon what I’ve received from the airline, airport, pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and all the personnel and inventors and engineers who will have made my flights [...]

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