The word “linchpin” isn’t new. Merriam-Webster’s states a linchpin is one that serves to hold together parts or elements that exist or function as a unit. More importantly in my mental evolution, Seth Godin defines a Linchpin, and I paraphrase his brilliance, as one who is indispensable, or “the one they’ll miss.”  He’s written an entire book entitled Linchpin Are You Indispendable?, and it clearly illuminates what many adults I know are feeling.

Our world is shifting.  We must embrace the global economy and recognize that we will no longer prosper as cogs in manufacturing machines.  The US industrial revolution is over, and we can sit around and resent those countries experiencing theirs (and taking those loathsome cog jobs), or we can find what we are meant to do in our own time and space and create new dreams.  We are built as humans to stand out, not fit in.  But we are trained sorely otherwise.

This was my gut instinct. This is what I felt when I hit a round hole as a square peg in my career. And while it caused me to shift my own direction, the more important effect was a change in my parenting, my conversations with my children, and how we think about the system of education that was created to produce a labor force of factory workers one hundred years ago.

I have home-schooled my kids. I have been an active public school parent. I have considered private school. But we have yet to find our fit. How can I engage a system to meet the needs of children I am dedicated to raising, not to fit the notions of education creators so long ago, but as Linchpins, prepared to engage daily in a way that challenges societal expectations, questions the “musts,” and eliminates the “shoulds?”

No status quo. No “good enough.” No publicly funded babysitting.  No overpriced private education determined to indoctrinate them into a higher education system equally questionable in its necessity in our future. These alone will not suffice.

These three humans will rock the world in powerful, wonderful ways, and do so on THEIR terms. I’m just here to assist.

This is our journey.