You can learn something from a hurricane. I've noticed that the trees which tended to survive the onslaught of Hurricane Hugo were those which leaned against the wind. Most of the trees that were leaning with the wind were snapped in two or blown up by their roots.

Students need to be challenged to occasionally lean against the wind. All people occasionally need to lean against the wind. This isn't easy in a world like ours. The mass media begins training children to be consumers before they are three years old. Before you are three, people have been working to try to get you to buy what the crowd buys.

When I was an infant, barely able to talk, a relative would grab my foot and start pulling the toes from big toe around to little toe. She'd say, "This little piggy went to market. This littl…