Book Review: Robert Kiyosaki, "If You Want to Be Rich & Happy Don't Go to School"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0944031595/ref=cm_li_v_p_self?tag=linkedin-20

The importance and significance of this book in the present times cannot be exaggerated. It is one of the key sources for educational reform if not reconstruction. The problems prevailing at a given level cannot be tackled by remaining on the same level. So declared Einstein in one of his many prescient moments. Thus it is that it sometimes requires an outsider to perceive the problems in a given field that those in it are unable to. When such an outsider does see with an unprejudiced eye and also proposes solutions, it is indeed fortunate for the field. “Rich Dad, Poor Dad"s Robert Kiyosaki is such a privileged and welcome outsider. His provocative book is a rich contribution to the field of educational reform. It is provocative indeed in the sense that Edward de Bono uses in his book "I am Right, You are Wrong". Characteristically, Kiyosaki's book resonates well with de Bono's perceptive thinking as a prelude to Lateral thinking. It forces one to look not for the 'right' solution but for all alternative solutions. The title is deceptive and refers more to richness per se at several levels, intellectual, cultural, emotional, physical than richness in a financial sense alone. 

The subtitle "If you want to be Rich and Happy Don't go to School" is striking and timely. It also is equally bold and provocative. This came home to me vividly when after reading this book a few years ago I chanced upon the same book with a modified title, "Be Rich and Happy" (http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/robert-t-kiyosaki/rich-happy/9788184950670.html) at a local bookstore. Browsing the first few pages I realized that it is exactly the same as the book cited above. It struck me like lightning when I realized why the subtitle had been removed in the South East Asian edition. We have come to adhere so rigidly to the letter of the law, glorified obedience as opposed to independence to say nothing of interdependence, competition as opposed to cooperation or co-petition, critical thinking as opposed to creative thinking that we are suffering from an educational seizure. The book with the subtitle would have at once put off or frightened those to whom school, whatever be its poverty in quality, is sacred to the letter. It doesn't matter whether we are churning out assembly-line students after depriving them of their inborn creativity they come gifted with and retain till age five. Indeed for many, much of higher education consists in unlearning all the undigested educational material forced down one's throat without regard to its relevance to life. 

Eminent thinkers, psychologists, educationists and leaders like John Holt, Buckminster Fuller, Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Edwards Deming, Peter Senge, Eliyahu Goldratt, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Po Bronson have spoken out vehemently against the limiting beliefs and habits that present day schools inflict students with. Much good is sought after by schooling but it is hard to say whether the gain or loss is more for it can never be proved, only experienced by the individual. Robert Kiyosaki demonstrates in the present book the fact that academic success has little to do with success in life. It does play a role for some, a mere 15 percent perhaps but for many, it only dilutes it. Kiyosaki does focus more on financial success and he is in good company as another prominent Wall Street personality Peter Lynch in his books "Learn to Earn", "Beating the Wall Street", and "One Up on Wall Street" also brings out the shortcomings of conventional education when it comes to financial awareness. Donald Trump, who, though few are aware, was a very good student of science, also points this out especially in his book coauthored with Kiyosaki, "Why we Want you to be Rich, -Two Men, One Message". Howard Gardner in "The Unschooled Mind" and "The Disciplined Mind" has another powerful perspective on education. In "5 Minds for the Future" he maps out the crucial requirements of future education completely lacking in the present times. 

Robert Kiyosaki begins with the statement,
"It is time for our society, and particularly our educational system, to stop playing the game of winners and losers with our children's minds, hearts, and financial futures....
In our own school years, most of us were subjected not to a system of education but to a system of elimination --and that system sadly continues even to this day. Rather than helping us develop the very best in each of us, this system has pitted us against each other in a tragic struggle where only those whom the system defines as the 'fittest' have survived. In this system less than 15 percent of us are defined as winners. The rest of us are left with a diminished sense of our own self-worth.
Instead of leaving school with confidence that we have skills to do well in life, all too many of us have graduated crippled and hurt. What's even worse, most of us are shamefully unprepared for the challenges that we meet in the adult world. ..
In this game of winners and losers into which we've been thrown, even the so-called winners ultimately lose since we end up with a society where only a small fraction of our human potentials are ever discovered or utilized. The cost to all of us is immeasurable - in terms of financial pressure, low productivity, crime, emotional stress, and a continuing diminishment of personal satisfaction."

He then puts forth an assurance, “In these pages you will explore why many of the limitations you thought were just the facts of life are not. You will discover how many of the disappointments and frustrations you may have experienced in your life aren’t the result of your personal shortcomings; instead, they are the shortcomings of an educational system that promised you a map to successful living but in fact delivered just the opposite.” In one of the chapters at the middle of the book, he asks, “In education, do some people have to fail so that others can succeed? The answer is a resounding “No! Definitely not!’ Failure only occurs in education because that is how the system was designed. But since we created the system, don’t we have the ability to change it?” 

“Why don’t parents and teachers stand up to this system that is set up for students to fail? Who authorizes the system to brand your child smart or slow, gifted or not gifted? Why do parents whose children aren’t doing well allow them to be the “less than smart’ underclass so that privileged “bright” students can look good?” …In the peer society that develops in such environments, “fast” and ”slow” quickly gets translated into “smart” and ”dumb.” How does one measure the emotional pain that slips into the subconscious and haunts children, both the high and low achievers, over their lifetimes? We cannot afford to be careless about our judgments and thoughts around children…”

“Traditional education, however, is still set up to reward the students it deems smart while systematically weeding out the undesirable, less intelligent, “stupid” students. It is not a system set up to educate all the people that come in to it. It is set up to look for the smartest and to educate them. That’s why there are tests, grades, gifted programs, remedial programs and labels. It is a system of classifying, discriminating and segregating.” 

“Most of us are tired of hearing about Japanese high-tech, innovative, quality products at excellent prices. Yet, let us not forget that there was a time, not so long ago, when “Made in Japan” meant inferior products. The person responsible for the change was an American named W. Edwards Deming (Read my post on Peter Senge's book "The Fifth Discipline"). Very simply, what the Japanese did was change their systems of business and manufacturing. Deming reports that 94 percent of all failures in business are system failures. Only 6 percent are people failures. So even if all our teachers were replaced and their replacements were given higher pay and smaller class sizes, nothing would change because the system would still remain intact. Japan, Deming points out, doesn’t excel because it ha s better people but because it has better, more efficient systems. Meanwhile we blame our educational failures on inadequate teachers, or low pay, or class size, perhaps only because these are the most visible parts of a system whose other 90 percent is invisible…”

Robert Kiyosaki is perhaps one of the few who realizes as did Deming before him that systems thinking is at the heart of the problem and not students, teachers or parents. He goes on to say,

“Teachers have become the scapegoats of parents, politicians and administrators who would rather invent new slogans and throw more money at the problem than learn something about systems and how they could affect lasting, worthwhile change. The evolution of our society will continue to be held back until we all start looking at it in this new way. Only then can we begin to reap the emotional, professional and financial benefits that all of us are capable of making a reality. Let’s wake up and stop making teachers our scapegoats!”

The most pertinent message he voices is best captured when he says, “If there is a single message that we must understand from all this, it is that the current system of education will not change until we let go of the idea that there is such a thing as a stupid human being.”

In all, Robert Kiyosaki's book is a powerful, balanced, wake-up call for educational reform.This book will really make one rich and happy in a profound sense as its title promises.