I Audes...

Probably as Brigade Commander of my hometown and county, I was given the "I Dare You" Award. Inspired by William H. Danforth, founder of the Ralston, Purina Company, it was given to students to inspire "responsibility and leadership." The award was a handsomely bound leather book. After reading it, I was supposed to give it away.

So, I Dare You:

1. To think. Critical thinking is defined as "the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness."
2. To help your teachers. Lord knows, they're trying to help you, they're literally betting many times, putting their faces on Facebook, Twitter feeds, news sites and blogs that their districts can't fire all of them at once, and pass assigned standardized tests. Frankly, the standardized tests they drill you on isn't what they went to school for, or qualified to do: they want to teach their subjects. That's why they studied them; qualified to teach them.
3. To help yourselves. Every generation has a symbol of rebellion: pomade grease and leather jackets (50's); Afros, bell bottoms, hippy style and mini skirts (60's); more minis, leotards, wide collared polyester suits, disco (70's); more leotards, leggings, and dance wear, valley girl, preppy, Miami Vice, big jewelry, track suits and heavy metal (80's), more preppy, more hippy, more leggings, grunge look, punk, pastel and hip hop (90's)...you get the idea. This is not an inclusive list, by far. Like your parents and grandparents before you, this too shall pass. You'll get older, get responsible, get hopefully a child when you and your mate are ready by mature age, financially, emotionally...and, you'll have to go to work.
4. To educate yourselves. That seems a restatement of #1, but it's not. Education is: "the act, or process of educating"; "the knowledge and development resulting from an education process." It is sharpened with critical thinking, as you might ask: "how does all this standardized testing eventually get me a job?" "Where are the jobs?" "Are they coming back?" "What kind of citizen is this curriculum preparing me to be?"

Eventually, I'll stop blogging. I'll either be too old, or too dead (and Zombies usually don't blog). This world will be yours, and STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics - will be central to your lives in ways I can only imagine. For time and giants before you have tackled mountains like the Civil War, Women's Suffrage, Women's Rights, Voting Rights et al. Time's arrow goes ever forward. And our survival as a species will depend of a diverse group, and that group is you, if you're younger than my 1/2 Century in age, and reading this.

You'll have to define what it means to be human - literally, as the economies of the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's are in our past, and entropy prevents backwards time travel, sadly. There will be new problems of climate, food supply, economics, politics, wars and rumors of wars. They will not be insurmountable: you can solve them.

I audes...I dare you...for you.