Mr. Carlson, you were right…
At least one time each month, my high school math teacher, Mr. Carlson, would show us his financial investment reports.
That’s right. Mr. Carlson would let us see underneath the hood of his wealth-building strategies. I don’t remember a lot about trigonometric functions or power series, but I remember that he was making money!
Every month he found a way to instill the value of compounding interest. He did it for three reasons:
To help make math fun.
To see the value in learning and applying math skills in our personal lives.
To build better habits.
And then, he would sum it with “work smarter.” Inevitably, someone like me would ask a “How do we” question. Those types of questions led to memorable, interactive learning experiences to get better at Algebra and Trigonometry.
Persistent stagnation, decline, or distressed neighborhoods is a system issue. And, if you’re not working on your ecosystem, then you’re not going to improve it.
Building thriving places isn’t an exercise of trying harder.
Instead, it begins with questions. For example, “How do we build an equitable, sustainable, magnetic place” is a much better question than “who isn’t doing their job to make this a better place for all?”