Advise of the day.

I believe that success is dreaming, setting goals and working HARD to achieve those goals consistently. If you are not sure what you want to do, just start working toward SOMETHING until you find your passion. The key to success is persistence and determination. Just do it…because YOU can! No excuses.

"I would say to our youth:

First of all: YOU ALL HAVE GREATNESS INSIDE OF YOU! There is a purpose in each and every one of you, and you must complete the greatness that you were sent on Earth to complete. And this greatness of yours, MAY or MAY NOT be with you making the NBA or becoming a rap/singing star. If it does not involve playing sports or being an entertainer, that’s cool.

Plus, get the best education that you possibly can; whether that’s setting your sights on a four-year college, two-year college or trade school. But, push yourself to do a little more than you think you can do. An example of this would be to look at a four-year college, although you really have your sight set on a two-year institution. At least be aware of what it takes to get into a four-year college. And this awareness should start as early as your eighth grade school school.

For young brothers: If you are in the “drug and guns game,” be careful. Many of our young men thought they could beat the system only to find out that they could not when they lost control. For example, they murdered someone by shooting them after losing their temper and ended up doing major time in prison. Can you imagine yourself doing 20, 25 or 35+ years in prison? The time that’s being handed out by the courts is SERIOUS. Many of the cats that accidentally murdered someone did not wake-up until it was too late. They are now spending most of their lives in prison (many times with major mental sickness).

For young sisters: Maintain your virtue and confidence. You don’t need a young man that’s not treating you right to be complete and fulfilled. You ALREADY are complete. Get busy with the vision (plan) that you have for your life."

" I would say that you need to have a vision and a thankful attitude. Where do you see yourself a year from now? Three years from now? How ’bout when you become a grown-up? Dream as big as you can! Don’t worry about what you don’t have right now but rather be thankful for this moment. Being grateful is a very powerful step to getting where you want to go. When we are thankful for where we are right now, whether that is a 1 bedroom apartment on the 27th floor in the Bronx or in a two family house in Newark, be grateful and watch what happens. Being grateful brings more good things into your life. The more thankful you are, the more great things you attract to yourself; therefore, attracting the right people, teachers and mentors to you and your well-being. I know cause it’s happening to me right now.

Every morning I get up (and before my feet touch the floor) I start giving thanks. Before I became a children’s book illustrator, I would say, ” Thank you Lord that I am a published writer and children’s book illustrator.” I would say it all the time. Now, I am doing just what I said, and I am thankful.

Finally, get around people with good energy who will support you and encourage you. Stay away from those who poo-poo your dreams. Remember, you can’t put a SUPER LARGE VISION in a small mind, or into a mind that isn’t thinking as BIG as you are. It just ain’t gonna work. Keep pressing forward to your vision"

JOBS $ INVENT IT

WHEN Tony Wagner, the Harvard education specialist, describes his job today, he says he’s “a translator between two hostile tribes” — the education world and the business world, the people who teach our kids and the people who give them jobs. Wagner’s argument in his book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” is that our K-12 and college tracks are not consistently “adding the value and teaching the skills that matter most in the marketplace.”This is dangerous at a time when there is increasingly no such thing as a high-wage, middle-skilled job — the thing that sustained the middle class in the last generation. Now there is only a high-wage, high-skilled job. Every middle-class job today is being pulled up, out or down faster than ever. That is, it either requires more skill or can be done by more people around the world or is being buried — made obsolete — faster than ever. Which is why the goal of education today, argues Wagner, should not be to make every child “college ready” but “innovation ready” — ready to add value to whatever they do.

That is a tall task. I tracked Wagner down and asked him to elaborate. “Today,” he said via e-mail, “because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity to innovate — the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life — and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge. As one executive told me, ‘We can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think — to ask the right questions — and to take initiative.’ ”

 My generation had it easy. We got to “find” a job. But, more than ever, our kids will have to “invent” a job. (Fortunately, in today’s world, that’s easier and cheaper than ever before.) Sure, the lucky ones will find their first job, but, given the pace of change today, even they will have to reinvent, re-engineer and reimagine that job much more often than their parents if they want to advance in it. If that’s true, I asked Wagner, what do young people need to know today?

“Every young person will continue to need basic knowledge, of course,” he said. “But they will need skills and motivation even more. Of these three education goals, motivation is the most critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated — curious, persistent, and willing to take risks — will learn new knowledge and skills continuously. They will be able to find new opportunities or create their own — a disposition that will be increasingly important as many traditional careers disappear.”

So what should be the focus of education reform today?

“We teach and test things most students have no interest in and will never need, and facts that they can Google and will forget as soon as the test is over,” said Wagner. “Because of this, the longer kids are in school, the less motivated they become. Gallup’s recent survey showed student engagement going from 80 percent in fifth grade to 40 percent in high school. More than a century ago, we ‘reinvented’ the one-room schoolhouse and created factory schools for the industrial economy. Reimagining schools for the 21st-century must be our highest priority. We need to focus more on teaching the skill and will to learn and to make a difference and bring the three most powerful ingredients of intrinsic motivation into the classroom: play, passion and purpose.”

What does that mean for teachers and principals?

“Teachers,” he said, “need to coach students to performance excellence, and principals must be instructional leaders who create the culture of collaboration required to innovate. But what gets tested is what gets taught, and so we need ‘Accountability 2.0.’ All students should have digital portfolios to show evidence of mastery of skills like critical thinking and communication, which they build up right through K-12 and postsecondary. Selective use of high-quality tests, like the College and Work Readiness Assessment, is important. Finally, teachers should be judged on evidence of improvement in students’ work through the year — instead of a score on a bubble test in May. We need lab schools where students earn a high school diploma by completing a series of skill-based ‘merit badges’ in things like entrepreneurship. And schools of education where all new teachers have ‘residencies’ with master teachers and performance standards — not content standards — must become the new normal throughout the system.”

Who is doing it right?

“Finland is one of the most innovative economies in the world,” he said, “and it is the only country where students leave high school ‘innovation-ready.’  They learn concepts and creativity more than facts, and have a choice of many electives — all with a shorter school day, little homework, and almost no testing. In the U.S., 500 K-12 schools affiliated with Hewlett Foundation’s Deeper Learning Initiative and a consortium of 100 school districts called EdLeader21 are developing new approaches to teaching 21st-century skills. There are also a growing number of ‘reinvented’ colleges like the Olin College of Engineering, the M.I.T. Media Lab and the ‘D-school’ at Stanford where students learn to innovate.”