Cory Shaw

This morning my wife Emily started talking about a book she was reading that really struck a chord with me. The book is about a girl who struggled throughout school. She was disruptive in class so the school wrote her off as “challenged” and sent her to a “special” school. Her parents then sent her to a psychologist who determined that she was mentally fine. The psychologist turned on the radio, left the room, then watched as the little girl danced around the room passionately. His diagnosis? Put her in dance classes. That challenged little girl grew to became the choreographer for the play “Cats” and many other broadway plays that have swept the nation.

I love this story because my youth was not so different. I was diagnosed with a learning disability in elementary school. My problem was that I couldn’t effectively learn and be engaged with the single and narrow method that the school system deemed to work for everyone. As a result my grades suffered throughout high school.

To my rescue came the special education system. This system’s teachers dove deep into understanding my strengths, weaknesses, and how I learn best. Early in high school I was able to discover my true strengths and started to harness them. Doing this early in life has allowed me to have the career and ultimately live the life of my dreams. I’m very fortunate to have gone though the alternate education system. I even had classes that taught me important stuff like how to do a personal budget, how to open a checking account, pay bills, etc. Things everyone else has to learn the hard way.

What saddens me is that I had to be “special” to benefit from this awesome education. Could you imagine if everyone were taught to harness their strengths and follow their passions in the school system? As parents we cannot trust that the school system will take care of it.

Screw your weaknesses, harness your strengths.

Switzerland has enlightened me. The Swiss really have their green thing going on, and there’s a few things that have me scratching my head thinking “why the hell doesn’t the US adopt this stuff?” Are we too proud to admit that another country has done something better? It’s time to swallow our pride and adopt a few of these things that the Swiss do so well:

1. Toilets that have two flush buttons
   One small button for #1 that emits just enough water to flush’er down, another larger button that takes the kids to the water park. I can only imagine how much water this saves throughout the country!
   
2. Escalators that only run when there’s people on them
   At first i thought they were broken,  but as you approach them they turn on automatically. Makes sense.
   
3. Fixed temperature water faucets
   These water faucets let you fix the temperature so that its always the same when you turn it on by pulling the lever out. Brilliant.
   
4. Green Transportation
   The swiss railway system can take you pretty much anywhere you need to go, and once you get there you’ll see lots of energy efficient small cars, electric buses, and lots of people walking to their destination.
   
5. Organic (”Bio”) locally produced foods
   Most of the produce in the stores is organic. When something is not local, they tell you where it came from.
6. No plastic or paper bags in grocery stores
   Everyone brings their own reusable bags. You don’t even have the option for paper or plastic. This should be a law in the U.S.

With the U.S. consuming 25% of the worlds energy, and being the world’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, you’d think we’d be looking into what other countries are doing right to consume so little.