If I had to pick the one thing that I wish school managed to do for everyone, it would be instill a love of reading. I remember knowing I had to learn how to read, I remember reading in class, I remember people saying reading was important, but I don’t remember people at school ever saying that reading was fun.

For some reason, for me, it was. I think that it’s because my parents read to me every single day before bed (i still feel a bit odd if I don’t read before bed). They read a huge set of books, most far above my reading level- The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Redwall, Narnia, His Dark Materials, and probably a million I’m forgetting. One of the few times I remember being extremely upset was a time I was watching my dad read my brother Dinotopia, while waiting for my mom to come read to me. She thought I was entertained listening to my brother’s book, and decided it was bed time, and I didn’t get to read part of mine. I cried for at least an hour, and wasn’t placated until she read a chapter. Reading was a huge part of my life, but because it was instilled while I was at home.

So as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more and more that the love of reading was the most important thing I learned.  Love of reading was important because it means that I read continuously. Here are all the things my love of reading has helped me with, and why I think it’s the most important (school-related) thing for a child to learn. Reasons 1-3 all relate specifically to language, but 4-5 are more broad.

1. Spelling – I was never great with spelling growing up. i still can’t spell out loud. But when I’m writing, I can tell immediately if a word is correct or not. It looks right or wrong because I’ve seen it written so many times.

2. Grammar – People’s brains are great at pattern matching. Like with spelling, I’ve seen enough written sentences to know when mine flow.

3. Vocabulary – When you read, you aren’t just memorizing vocab words like you would be with SAT prep cards. You see words in context, repeatedly, and now that we have great ebook readers, you can even define words without breaking your flow.

4. Communicating Ideas – The more things you read, the more times you’ll see ideas that are communicated well, or horribly. Being able to sense what helps get the point across helps you communicate your ideas better.

5. Learning – Reading is a great way to learn about a discipline. Not everyone is the type of person who learns best through reading, but I believe almost everyone can learn through reading, and the more they read, the easier it will get. Loving to read gives you a tool to start a foundation in a field – you can read a book (relatively low investment) before deciding to take a full class, reach out to an expert, or take another drastic step. Reading is the gateway.

I wouldn’t be anything like I am today without reading. I wish we’d instill a love of reading in kids, instead of an obligation to read. It’s probably the best advantage we can give them.

When I first heard about the Awesome Foundation in Boston, I was skeptical. I didn’t want to just give away (a lot of) money for no coherent reason. i wasn’t sure who would apply. I was afraid it looked like trying too hard to be cool. It seemed frivolous (although that didn’t stop me from going to the parties to see some cool people).

Two years later, I’m a trustee of Awesome Seattle. So what changed? For me, the Awesome Foundation isn’t about giving away money, it’s about bringing a lot of different people together.  The overall theme of this is “interdisciplinary,” but here’s a few places that surfaces:

1. The Parties – Awesome parties are unlike any other type of event I’ve been to. Conferences are formal, bars aren’t where you meet people to network, and most meet ups are segregated by “tech,” “art,” or some other boundary. Awesome Foundation parties are the type of event where anyone in the community can show up and hopefully feel at home. This might not be entirely the case yet, but I know we’re striving for it. I think it’s one of the first places that’s really shoving everyone with cool ideas in an area in one place.

2. The Trustees – The trustees bring together a group of people who might not otherwise know each other. Everyone brings a different giving and planning perspective to the table. I’ve learned a lot more planning the Awesome Foundation events than I have events that were just in my field. The nature of having rotating guest seats means even more people, and more opinions.

3. The Project Proposals – Getting to read a bunch of different proposals sparks more ideas. I see more crazy things, and have more crazy thoughts, now that I dedicate a few hours every month to just reading ideas. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be so focused on writing now if it weren’t for all the proposals that center around writing. All of the ones around art remind me how large-scale art can be. It just brings the spectrum forward.

4. The Organization – It’s really hard to run a lightweight organization- much harder than a bureaucratic one. Who organizes the applications, but doesn’t feel burdened? How do you run the meetings and still hear everyone? How do you have a regular schedule without stifling things? It’s an experiment in organizational minimalism that I think I’ll be able to take away.

5. The Grants – Finally, the grants. I wasn’t entirely sure how they helped at first, but much in the spirit of #3 (The Project Proposals) the grants help others in the community to see awesome things. It’s not just me who gets inspired to have more ideas, and when more people see them (and apply in future cycles, or not) it can help create more awesome ideas.

The Awesome Foundation is a huge motivator for me personally – I have more ideas, I think more about interdisciplinary work, and I strive to see how to make other things more lightweight. But I think the biggest thing is I’m hoping this effect goes further than me, further than my influence network, and throughout the community.

Talk to elementary schoolers, or even high schoolers, about math. They’ll break down pretty neatly into a group that likes math or is “good” at math, and a group that is “bad” at math, or doesn’t like math. The group that is “bad” at math won’t think there’s any problem with this- they’ve been surrounded by adults who tell them that it’s okay, that lots of people are bad at math, and that you don’t need math do well in the real world.

Sure, I’ll be the first to admit not everyone needs to learn Differential Equations to function in society. I learned them, and I never use them. The same may be true of calculus. I won’t use either discipline much as I do day to day work. At the same time, I’m not sorry I learned them. There’s something substantial to be said for 1) learning how to do something that’s very hard and 2) learning how to do something that’s very abstract.  Both of these skills help you learn how to learn better, and shape your thinking in different ways. Math can teach that in some fields, there are right and wrong answers. Learning math is very valuable for learning how to learn.

What we don’t point out, is that the same is true of the type of writing we emphasize in school. Yes, we need to be able to communicate with others. Most of the writing taught in school is literary analysis, and like differential equations, no one has asked me to do it since high school. Writing is important because it teaches that society isn’t black and white- that you need to take inputs from a variety of sources and process them to figure out what you think is true. You need to be able to communicate your ideas to other people. So just as math can teach abstract thinking, writing can teach synthesis.

However, by the time you’re at late high school or even during college, most of the learning isn’t for a specific skill set, be it DiffEQ or literary analysis. So why does the educational system only value one of these types of thinking? Abstract thinking and communication/analysis skills are both important. We force engineering students to take at least 28 credits of humanities (about one course per semester) in the name of being well rounded.  Despite this, we still scorn engineers for being “black and white” or not interacting with people well, despite taking courses on both ends of the spectrum.  We never do the opposite- we don’t force humanities students to have this same breadth by considering analytical and societal problems. We consider being “well rounded” for a humanities student to have specialized in one field, like history, and also studied a language, psychology, or sociology. These fields have much less distance or diverse skills, yet we frequently call these students well-rounded.

Math shouldn’t be optional- it’s a valid part of a complete education, just like writing and reading are.  If we’re going to say we want well-rounded students, let’s make sure we follow through on what well-rounded really means, and teach students the full breadth of the spectrum, not make excuses for them.

I didn’t originally plan for my first essay to be an essay on writing essays. However, I think it’s important to share why I’m embarking on writing one essay per day, for every day in December.

I spent all of this November writing. I wrote over 50,000 words.  I’d been meaning to do it since 6th grade- the year I first heard of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) on open diary. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write an entire novel (50,000 words) in a month. I hadn’t ever managed to successfully do it, despite stating that I would for 12 years. Every one of those 12 years I intended to write something, be it a fiction novel, a biography of myself, or a nonfiction book on why people should take sabbaticals. This year, I didn’t give myself a directive – I just said I had to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. The 50,000 words ended up being a combination of memories, opinions, feelings, and day to day happenings.

At the end of the month, when I read back through them, I realized I needed to do more with writing. There was a lot of content in my 50,000 words- stories I hadn’t ever told anyone, ideas for fiction, and half written opinions. I wanted to get better at expressing myself. So on November 27th, I decided that for December, rather than trying to re-edit my 50,000 words into a book, I’d work on writing one solid essay every day. I figured essays would force me to consider and solidify my opinions, and force me to only hold opinions that I’m able to express well.

I looked into writing essays- I started “How to Live,” a biography of Montaigne. Montaigne was the inventer of the essay (from the French, essayer, to try). Montaigne wrote to understand himself better. I read Scott Berkun’s Mindfire. I brainstormed a list of topics I thought I would be good at. I refused to write essays beforehand, so I’d be even more anxious and excited to get started. I waited for December.

You may now note that it’s now December 3rd, and not December 1st. The first couple days of the month I realized that I start writing an essay, get halfway there, and stop, because it wouldn’t be good enough. I’d start with one idea, and then tie in twelve others, and then it would be too long and confusing to be readable.  I am terrible at putting my opinion into solid writing.

So in the next 28 days, I will share 30 more essays. They might not get better each day, but I hope essay #31 is substantially better than this one.

So, it’s literally been six months since I’ve written in my blog. I’m not sure how I managed that one.

Brief overview of things that have happened:

• April- went to NYC with my Grandma and Aunt to see Arcadia.
• May- Went to London with my family! It was my first time in London.
  

  Home in London

• June- Startup Weekend Seattle! Worked on sharedinnerwith.me
• June – Had the 2+2 unconference in Boston!
  

  Watching presentations at the 2+2 con

• June- Job shift at work from doing Symbian to doing Office Hub on Windows Phone.
• June – October – Lots of trips to Boston for the above.
• June – Had my first patent filed!!
• June – July – Got a bike!
  

  Bike!

• July – Joined the newly formed Seattle chapter of the Awesome Foundation 
• July – Completed a first full year of working at Microsoft!
• August – Alyshia moved to Seattle!
• August – Moved to a new house- we’re trying to do “Paleo Social” and I think we’ve been doing pretty well so far.
  

  Moving with movers is MUCH easier.

• August – Attempted dogsitting. For the first, and likely last, time.
• September – Went to Chicago for dinner at Alinea.
• September – My parents came to visit.
• September – Trip to San Francisco with Tom
  

  Finally went to blue bottle.

• October – Went recruiting at Olin!
• October – Another job change I can’t talk about yet! I’ll update again after the end of next week.

Of course, there have also been the continual activities:

• The Finishing School (aka the Life Goals Club)
• Learning how to cook
• Reading

2010 had the highest highs, and the lowest lows, of any year I can remember. I am glad it is over.

2011 started with me running into the Atlantic Ocean, and then jumping in a freezing cold pool. Twice. It will be awesome.

Me. In the ocean. Around midnight. Courtesy of Nikki. (It was foggy).