Julie Leung, nearly a neighbor at least in terms of the distances involved in the online world, wrote up a long and interesting piece in response to Doc Searls’ column. I can’t rehash it all – you’ll have to visit her post.

It made me think about education…and two things in particular:

She quotes Cathy Nickum from Bainbridge Buzz who says that education is about loving the questions. I love this line, but for a slightly different reason than Cathy is going for. So much focus today is on the answers – the right answers to the right perscriptive tests. What’s being lost, I fear, is teaching kids the joy of asking great questions. Inquiring, being curious, seeking out new questions to ask as much (or more) than you seek for answers. This is the essence of an exciting and valuable education. Teach your kids to wonder, to doubt, to always seek out new questions to ask, never accept things at face value.

The other thing Julie reminded me of, for some reason, was the most inspirational teacher I had. She talks quite a bit about her high school, Lakeside, which is a rather upper-crust kind of institution (Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended, for example). My own experience is oddly similar – the school (Homestead in Cupertino) was a public one and not quite so elite, but our own local tech heroes, Steve Jobs and Wozniak, both attended before my time. So this explains why the connection sparked – but what Julie reminded me of was my journalism teacher, Nick Ferentinos.

He ran the school’s journalism program, including the school paper The Epitaph, which over the years has won many of the nation’s top honors in scholastic journalism and served as a test case for a Supreme Court ruling on censorship in schools. So the program was tough, but Nick was an inspiration. On day one of Writing for Publication (the Cub reporter course) he wrote in bold letters across the blackboard:

PASSION

And proceeded to spend the next two years helping us recognize that you’ll love whatever you do so long as you have passion for it. Journalism was merely his tool for conveying this lesson. What he was really teaching was the importance of having passion for what you do.

A lesson that stuck and has influenced me for years. Perhaps that’s why he’s the only high school teacher I really remember.

If you ever read this Nick, thanks.

To tie together my ramblings for the morning then – love the questions, and find your passion. That’s what education is all about.

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