Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and agree with most of what this post says in isolation, but unfortunately I think it misses the point in a broader context. This advice works when children/students have plenty of support from above. It can be counterproductive when they don't. It's preaching to the comfortable upper-middle-class choir.
These days I live in silicon valley and my wife's family sponsors a bunch of projects at the montessori school they've attended for multiple generations, but I grew up in a small town in Texas where parents (and teachers) beat children for asking questions the adults don't know how to answer. This is advice to help people who are already in a good position get into an even better position. If you're born at the bottom, using existing institutions, which are consistent and safe, to escape to a better place might be the best you can hope for. "Getting your friends together and busking" sounds great if you have money to buy instruments and free time to learn how to play them and sane supportive parents who are supportive of that, and that might make you stand out on your ivy league application if you manage to record and self-publish something. But a school marching band gives you an instrument, and schedules time for you to practice during the school day, and is a verifiable piece of experience that a state university will probably recognize even if you don't win any form of competition. So I don't consider this post to be good advice generally for the masses. And as long as bad parents are allowed to give their children bad childhoods and bad communities are allowed to treat children like property en masse, this advice will be counterproductive for a pretty significant portion of society.
These days I live in silicon valley and my wife's family sponsors a bunch of projects at the montessori school they've attended for multiple generations, but I grew up in a small town in Texas where parents (and teachers) beat children for asking questions the adults don't know how to answer. This is advice to help people who are already in a good position get into an even better position. If you're born at the bottom, using existing institutions, which are consistent and safe, to escape to a better place might be the best you can hope for. "Getting your friends together and busking" sounds great if you have money to buy instruments and free time to learn how to play them and sane supportive parents who are supportive of that, and that might make you stand out on your ivy league application if you manage to record and self-publish something. But a school marching band gives you an instrument, and schedules time for you to practice during the school day, and is a verifiable piece of experience that a state university will probably recognize even if you don't win any form of competition. So I don't consider this post to be good advice generally for the masses. And as long as bad parents are allowed to give their children bad childhoods and bad communities are allowed to treat children like property en masse, this advice will be counterproductive for a pretty significant portion of society.