Black In Business

Steli Efti is an entrepreneur and wants to build a on line community to change the education system. He is right it needs change. The future Blackinbusiness leaders will have better opportunities for success with a better education system. I have a degree in education and am a parent to black children. I am fascinated by the school’s name, “Super Cool School” and the vision of Mr. Efti.He is my first interview subject. If you care about education, this will be a great topic. Here goes! Thank you Steli, my Greek brother with the stamp of a brother with locks!I think your answers are compelling and may lead to more debate.

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You are a brilliant man, why education, what is in it for you?
I am a dreamer - blessed with opportunity and health. And I feel very passionate ( or pissed) about
the problems we face today in education worldwide. You see, I never decided to go into this field. It
just happened in a natural way. If I look back at my life I can see a clear path that has lead me to this
project. From dropping out of school, to becoming an entrepreneur, to teaching and coaching others and
being an advocate of education as the single most important process to growth.

I love learning. And building a free online school for the people is a fantastic way
to learn more then ever before in my life. I think that´s one of the key motivations why I´m doing this.

Supercool School’s name is hip why is it Kool and dose it translate into better students?
I hope so I think that education is a serious topic - however I do NOT believe that acting
seriously helps. I wanted to send out a crystal clear message that we
are different then the usual education websites and that we are inclusive!
Everyone knows something of value! I really do mean everyone. And if we all share
our knowledge and teach each other about things we really care about - that´s the coolest thing ever.
That´s why it´s Supercool School.

I loved your 7 lessons learned in school that will cause you to fail. Schools should prepare us for life, your 7 items are similar to what i would tell a sales team or business people. Describe how you implement this kind of change in thinking.
Step 1: you except those facts on a intellectual level. You read and reflect about your life and your believes and start to see the
patterns. That´s the easy part. What happens next is even easier: you change. What´s surprising to most of us is the fact that the hard part lies in between step 1 & 2 : and that´s commitment. You got to distinguish between wishing something would change and really wanting it. Most people don´t. And that´s why we still believe that changing is hard. It isn´t.

How important is diversity?
It´s essential. Learning is always an individual process. Individuals are diverse. We can see the problems of treating everyone the same way
in our current education system.
Most of us have experienced a time when we suddenly became better in a class after a new teacher arrived. It had nothing to do with the subject - it was the individual that changed our relationship and improved our attitude and our results. And why? Because it needs trust and respect for a student to open up and learn from a teacher. And you can´t force someone to trust and respect you.

If we all could choose our teachers in every subject you would probably pick someone else then I would for the same class. And that’s ok. We are different personalities and our current education system punish this fact instead of taking advantage of it.

I can´t even imagine what would happen if we would give the power of education to the students and give them more and more access to diversity. But the thought of it makes me smile for sure

Do we have enough black male teachers?

I think we don´t have enough brilliant, passionate and differentiated personalities in education.
And that´s because this field is so difficult, important and underpaid all at once.

I don´t know the exact numbers of black male teachers and honestly I do not feel very qualified to talk about this specific group.
But I truly believe that more black, Latino, Asian, Indian etc. teachers would be beneficial for our students.
The world is a diverse place and so are the people of this planet. Our cultural differences can be used positively for the benefit of our students
and our future. We can learn so much from each other but the current situation in our classrooms isn´t reflecting this enough.

At the end of the day I will probably always relate more to someone who looks like me and comes from a similar background. But it´s a choice that we can´t make as students as long as there aren´t enough teachers available from every cultural background.

There are studies that indicate the system is set up for black boys to fail, Black boys experience sudden drop off in performance in the 4Th and 5Th grade. Some of these kids had been honor students, Comments
Who is the system? Every system is build around people. And people have certain believes about the chances of different kinds of students. These believes transform into the way those students get treated. I believe that this is certainly one reason for kids to fail in this system. But it´s only one factor of many. Today, you have a chance against the system, but it´s definitely harder for black kids then for white kids. As it is harder for poor kids, immigrants, sick kids… everyone who is different in our society has to overcome obstacles. You can do it - but it´s harder then for the rest of us. I was an immigrant kid in a German school and most teachers had perceptions about how a cool Greek kid would perform and behave at school. That made it hard for me to stay motivated and work WITH my teachers. It felt like I had to work AGAINST them.

That´s not the best environment to grow and learn. It needs trust for people to learn from each other because we have to open up ourselves in order to receive new knowledge from others. So in my case the system won at first because I dropped out of school early. But I´m back for the attack

Do you believe the most difficult thing to do is learn a language, which we all do by kindergarten and if you do that you can do anything?
No - I don´t believe there is something that is “the most difficult thing to learn”. I believe we learn so much faster as kids because we haven´t
yet learned alot about learning. Kids learn in a pure way driven by curiosity and as they grow up we teach them to learn with intellect and to avoid mistakes. We put all these false ideas into their heads.

How many times does a baby fall down in the process of learning how to walk? Does a baby give up after a time and decide that she´s not a
walker? Does a baby give up learning to speak because she couldn´t say “papa” or “mama” after trying a thousand times? Nope. That would be ridiculous. They keep going till they figure it out. And they do it because we don´t put pressure on them and we don´t act like total morons. Well, that changes as soon as our kids get a bit older.

Our ability to learn is unlimited. Only the power of our believes can limit the speed of our learning. Period.

What can we do about the shocking stat in black America, we have more boys age 18 -23 in prison than in college.
It´s a vicious circle. The fact that more black boys age 18-23 are in prison than in college plays an important role in keeping the situation
this disastrous.
Our imagination draws pictures of our future in our mind. Those pictures are what motivates us and guides us towards our goals in life.
But our imagination is influenced by the pictures we see every day around us.
There are not enough stories, pictures, books, television shows, songs…etc. about black success stories outside of the entertainment and sport business. But there are so many success stories out there. We have to find better ways to spread the word about them.

I´m not sure if this is enough but to be honest with you - what do I know about it anyway? I´m a Greek kid born and raised in Germany.

Comment on parents.
More education.

Tell us anything about your self.
I hated learning when I was a kid. I felt like it was something to punish me and put me around boundaries. It was a magical moment in my life that turned my relationship to learning upside down.

I learned that education is the most powerful tool to freedom and since then I educated myself into a new life. From someone without perspectives in life to someone who builds a online school for the world to help others discover the power of learning and their love for education.

Education is freedom: Share it to grow!

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