Derek Cook > Recent Status Updates

At our house, school revolved around family life, not family life around school. Education was a priority, but education wasn’t limited to reading, writing, and math. It was about learning how to live and love well.

The most effective and efficient path to helping our kids find their unique giftings and passions is to create an environment that fosters self-led learning through encouraging experiences, exploration, and experiments. Self-directed learning does not mean no adult involvement. It means no adult forcing or controlling.

It’s important to understand that a child’s interest doesn’t have to turn into a passion or a career in order to have educational value. In fact, the opposite is true. When we allow our kids to follow what interests them for as long as it holds their attention, we send a clear message that their interests have value - that message gives them the courage to experiment and feeds their love of learning.

It is not that becoming a billionaire vindicates Jay’s hustling, his poetry, or his politics; it is that it offers him an even more visible platform to amplify his voice to speak about Black love, Black struggle, Black Death, Black success, Black wealth, Black overcoming, and Black thriving.

This book is reading like a book report on Jay-Z, like the assignment was to convince the class that their subject is important. I thought it was going to be more about Jay himself, not the author’s exegesis of his career.

It seems to me that JAY-Z is more of a jumping off point for discussions on black hustle, black excellence, and black culture. Not as much about it he man himself.