Educate our children to be pro-active

There's a story all over the news about a cruise ship which turned away from a stranded boat.  Two lives were lost as a result.  Here's one instance of the story:http://www.npr.org/2012/04/19/150897139/cruise-ship-didnt-aid-drifting-boat-passengers-say.  It seems to me that my K-12 education trained me to be passive and obedient, not to go out on a limb.  It seems to me that there's a part of me that wants to turn away from things, to pretend I didn't see.  I hope I would not turn away and let those people die, but I do have a concept of what it is within a person that would cause them to do so.  It seems to me that it has a lot to do with my education.  We need to educate people to be pro-active, not to educate them to be passive.

Not everyone is suited for everything

The blog post "I Used to Be Nicer" talks about how some PhD students just don't succeed.  It quotes a professor who says that, "Students who fail do not think it their own fault that they are failing." Some of the commenters argue that if students don't know they are failing, it is because their advisors have failed to give them adequate feedback.  I don't think that's necessarily the case.  I do see this phenomenon of students not being able to see that they are not suited to PhD work.  When PhD study is not working out for the student, I see them cast blame on the advisor, the courses, whatever.  But even as a non-professor, I can see that that student does not have the disposition to be a PhD student.

I think sometimes it is easier to see other people than to see ourselves.  I see PhD students who are not suited for PhD study, and it makes me wonder, what am I doing that I am not suited for?  When something I'm trying to do does not fall into place, how do I know when it's time to accept that it's not going to work, time to walk away and try something else?