Late last week I had a fantastic conversation with Pace and Kyeli Smith, in all of their excellent freakitude, and got to dig up lots of new information about their new website, Freak Revolution, which they launched this morning. We covered subjects like…

• The new Freak Revolution launch, what it all means and what y’all can do with it
• Unschooling and the education system, and our various opinions thereof
• How IMPORTANT it is to be different, and good at it!

And geeze, a ton more. What Pace and Kyeli are pursuing here is something very dear to my heart—the strength and proliferation of diversity, something I’ve written about in the original Tribes Casebook and at least a billion other times in my blog and elsewhere.

Freak Revolution Podcast mp3

Pour yourself a drink, browse to FreakRevolution.com, sit back and enjoy our 39 minutes of world-changing mojo! And, uh, don’t mind my circus ringleader opening, I promise the whole thing’s not like that…

I used to feel obliged to let people know how bad I did in school. I never did my homework; I wrote stories and drew pictures through my classes, as much and as often as I could get away with it (and sometimes when I couldn’t).

I read paperbacks and comic books—it’s harder for the teacher to notice if you make sure to have a pile of textbooks on the front corner of your desk. (At least, that was my theory.) My grades were middling, because I had to keep them at a certain level to avoid too much trouble, and to avoid getting kicked out of the theater program.

Even in college, when I had chosen my own focus, there was a theme: All of my performance and studio grades were excellent, but I stumbled through theory and history classes, though I made a bigger effort now that I was an “adult”. I didn’t read fiction in those classes, but I did do business planning and ideastorming about things that had nothing to do with music. Don’t get me wrong, I was interested in those classes—just not the way I was supposed to be.

When I truely “applied myself,” I was brilliant.

But I didn’t do that very often.

I am no longer defined by my technical performance in school—not even college. I’m defined by what I’ve done, and what I go on to do with what I have. I’m defined by what I’m willing to learn, and how steadily I’m inclined to grow and change and help others. I’m not a failure because the schooling I had wasn’t quite right for me. My life is getting better and more amazing constantly. No one cares that my grades were lame. And even “school” isn’t what I thought.

School isn’t some series of institutions with structured exercises and grade point systems.

School is me. The most important school has always been me. I just didn’t discover that until after I was grown up.

It doesn’t matter what you did before.

It only matters what you’ll do now.

Bob Poole asked me about my take on America’s educational system and in my attempt to provide him with a coherent response, I blew a gasket. It popped out of my left ear. I have no idea how to put it back. Where the hell does it even go? (I don’t think I have enough cash in my account to hire a mechanic, either.)

I decided to give it pride of place on top of the TV set. It’s kind of a memento, you know? Of frustration.

When I first watched Sir Ken’s TED presentation I just about burst into tears. I was lucky, man. I went to a great school that had a pretty reasonable slot in the budget for arts and theater. (What? You didn’t know I was an arts & theater kid? Have you even been paying attention?) Oh, there were boxes, there was plenty of math and science and there was plenty of “You’d be a Good Kid IF…” But I made out better than most. I was educated in a private, Catholic institution for almost all of my pre-university schooling—there were nuns. There were a lot of smart people, too.

I can’t even grasp what most kids grow up with these days. Kids in public schools deal with way more bullshit than I can even really grasp. (My one year in public school in seventh grade was QUITE enough for me, thanks.) I hear more horror stories about misguided teachers wantonly crushing the spirits of brilliant, creative, unorthodox-and-amazing children than you could shake a stick at. But it’s the school system I want to shake a stick at. Because we’re all but living in the dark ages with this industrial crap. We’re not training kids to work in factories anymore, people. They need to be prepared for the real world—the one we have now, and the one after that, and the one after that. They need to be flexible and wise. They need to be strong and compassionate and brave. They need to be warriors of the soul, leaders who take us forward, voices that challenge us to grow.

And we’re teaching them to put down their brains and do everything the same.

It makes me itch all over just thinking about it. And I could rant forever, but I’m going to stop here and point you to Bob’s post (wherein the rest of my diatribe is contained). Go read what we had to say.

You haven’t seen the end of this one.