Read books. No, seriously – that’s it. Get a book, read it, and think about it. Your brain has increased in cognitive power. Pish posh that’s too easy! Ok, then once you are done reading that book, read more books. Heck, even talk to someone about the book. While reading a book, if you find a word you don’t know, use context to deduce it’s meaning first, then look it up and see if you were accurate or not. Even if you were horribly miscalculated it’s not failing – it’s feed back.

When I was thinking about this article I started thinking back to a time when I read much more and with greater depth and realized that in school, after every book I read, I had to take a test on the book. Not on the message the author was conveying, or how I felt the book touched upon any subject or any kind of analytical thinking. It was all just regurgitation. The biggest flaw in our school system today is kids are taught to memorize data, and then choose from four options, which one is the most probable. This is flawed thinking.

What happens when kids come out of school and life goes heres INFINITE possibilities… Pick what you want. “Well what are my choices?” or “I don’t know what I want” are typical responses to life’s question. And anybody wonders why people can’t choose a major or don’t find a career they are happy with? We obsess about the “right answer” as opposed to the problem solving skill to actually create the solution that fits the individual. The school system today is a glorified baby sitting service, training new generations of kids to be good, obedient, database driven cogs. Innovation doesn’t come from choosing from the following options, a b c or d — It comes from analytical thinking, from accessing the creative mind, or as Apple states “Think Different”.

I’ll end this with a quote from a man who failed in school, but was eternally successful and highly brilliant: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” -Albert Einstein