It's Finally Published!
Now all I need to do is sit back and relax. What? Why are you laughing?
For those of you who didn't catch my last article on LinkedIn, it was focused on the celebration and release of having finished my latest book, "SACRED FIRE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION". I could finally relax. My labor of love was done... out there in a cold crowded world... all alone... with no one to read it.
YES, I took on this massive book project out of a personal desire to explore solutions to a major societal problem that had vexed me for many years. When I started this book…
I was NOT really thinking, "IS there a market?"
I WAS thinking, "Can it be done?"
That is just my nature. My real-world job for decades (the one that actually pays the bills 😏) is to dissect incredibly complex, complicated, and sometimes exciting/sometimes boring government, military, and business subjects and distill them down into absorbable chunks, processes, and pathways that mere mortals can understand easily. It is unlikely that you will ever see any of that work because most is locked behind restricted government and corporate security firewalls.
But that work prepared me for what was to come next. As my children were growing up I came face-to-face with a longstanding societal issue in the United States. One that would have an impact on the very soul of our nation for many decades to come. The convergence of my work experience and that realization led me ask a few questions.
The Unintended Consequence of My Work and My Children
If you are a fan of this Substack (I know you are), you might be wondering where the Unintended Consequence is on this one. You know that I always look for those unexpected things that happen when we just go about our lives, doing what we do - THEN something unexpected happens as a result of us just being us. The genesis of "Sacred Fire of Public Education" is an example of that.
This book probably never would have happened except for a convergence of several unconnected things that touched my life.
I had children.
I live in arguably the epicenter of the battles that have been raging around K-12 Public Education since around 2018.
COVID brought some major issues related to our public schools to the attention of millions of parents.
My career was built around dissecting complex subjects and developing and explaining viable solutions.
AND, I was looking for my next book to sink my teeth into.
I don’t know if you would technically call this book a “consequence”, but it is certainly a result. And any future “unintended consequences” are unknown at this moment.
So, what did all this convergence lead to? Being deeply involved in my job with some of the most amazing things going on in government, military, industry, and business, I wondered at the amazing world we live in today.
We reimagined SPACE TRAVEL and now have space tourism.
We reimagined TRANSPORTATION and now have self-driving cars.
We reimagined TECHNOLOGY and now command Artificial Intelligence.
We reimagined COMMUNICATION and can talk instantly to anyone in the world, communicate openly to the masses, and see the opinions of millions of other people around the world (well, I'm not so sure that last one is a positive 😂).
We have done so many amazing things because of WHO we are. We eat INNOVATION for breakfast. We lunch on INVENTION. We are Masters at accomplishing the IMPOSSIBLE. None of that is deniable, but it did prompt me to ask one simple question...
WHY have we NEVER applied those amazing powers to our K-12 PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
Suddenly, the questions were clear.
What could we accomplish if we looked at Public Education in a whole new way?
What would that way be?
How would it work?
Could it be done?
How would we pay for it?
Would parents even want it?
My career skills kicked in and I realized I was faced with a complex issue to dissect, analyze, and ultimately develop into an understandable approach to resolving the problem. I was giddy at the totally new prospect of tackling this complicated topic.
Good or Bad, There's a Bigger Issue
At first glance, you might THINK this book is about how bad the public schools are. And that WAS the initial focus of the book. But what makes this kind of writing so much fun is that halfway through, I realized that public schools being GOOD or BAD was NOT the purpose of this book. Good or bad, it did NOT matter.
Here is what does. No matter what YOU think about the quality of Public Schools, the FACT is that over 16 MILLION students will EXIT the K-12 Public Schools by 2030 for alternative schools such as private schools, homeschools, parochial schools, and others. It doesn't matter WHY this is going to happen; it matters that this WILL happen. Which is the genesis for the actual question I ended up asking.
What happens to the 50 million children left behind in the Public Schools?
THAT was the genesis of my labor of love for three years researching and developing an understandable, approachable, and feasible model for fundamental foundational reformation of the K-12 Public School system.
The research is done. The writing is done. The book is published. (Please buy it. 😁)
But WHY is My Job Only "Partly Done"?
To get back to the point of this story, there is more work to be done. When I finished writing the book, I quickly realized the job wasn't really finished even though the book was. I usually get contracted up front to consult, coach, and/or write to a very specific audience. Now, with my book, I had no pre-paid or pre-installed audience. I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO BUILD ONE!
Yikes!
Thus began a whole new world of research into deep topics like Advance Read Copies (ARCs), Reviews, Mail Lists, Marketing, Social Media, and on and on and on. In reality, much of this went on while I was still writing the book, but when I published the book, it became the focus of reality. Why?
Even though the book was simply a labor of love to research and write, I came ultimately to love the solution I had REIMAGINED. Now I want others to understand what COULD be done if we put our minds to it. The difference we COULD make in our country and for our children's children.
For that to happen, people OTHER THAN ME will need to read the book.
Okay, I know that’s NOT anything earthshakingly new. It is a concept as old as writing itself.
Plato laid the groundwork for Western political theory in “The Republic”.
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels redefined class struggles and inspired the rise of communist and socialist states in “The Communist Manifesto”).
Thomas Paine transformed colonial discontent into revolutionary fervor, and galvanized American independence in “Common Sense”, which arguably helped birth the United States of America in “Common Sense”.
And, of course, the foundations of Western religious thought, law, and ethics can be found in the most read book ever, “The Bible”.
WHAT IF no one had read those books?
Society would certainly look very, very different from the way it looks today. Would it be better or worse? No one on Earth can answer that.
But what I CAN say is that the reading of a book has NOW become very personal to me. It is now MY BOOK I want people to read.
Is there a bit of hubris in that? Yeah, I guess so. 😁
Okay, maybe there’s a lot. But if you don’t believe in your own work, why would you expect others to? Do I think my book COULD change America? Yes, honestly I do. Do I think my book WILL change America? Well, that might be a hubris too far.
But we’ll never know if you don’t go right now and Buy My Book!
p.s.: Stay tuned for my next Substack which will cover some major Unintended Consequences related to the discussion above regarding Plato, Marx, Paine and many others. It might even span a few Substack articles depending on how deep I get into them. You will want to read those!
David Nemzoff
Father, Husband, Author, and Entrepreneur
https://www.gabberz.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nemzoff/
https://X.com/davidnemzoff
https://www.facebook.com/david.nemzoff
Author of “Sacred Fire of Public Education”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0988273837
https://www.gabberz.com/sacredfireofpubliceducation
Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.