TONY WAGNER! closes NSBA conference

"such respect for school boards in work across the country"
"the formulation of the problem is often more essential than the solution" Einstein

"have often seen solutions in search of problems, answers in search of questions"
to give you some new things to work on
"we now no longer have a knowledge economy"
computers collecting and disseminating knowledge
no longer a competitive advantage to knowing more than the person next to you "because they're going to pull out their phone"
world no longer cares about what you know, but what you can do with what you know
immediate implications for our kids
underemployed college grads: employers don't want to hire recent grads because they don't think they have the skills that matter most
skills you need to succeed in an academic environment bear no resemblance to what you need in a competitive economic environment
don't hire kids from the best university, put through a boot camp and see how they solve problems competitive
"the word 'college' does not appear on a Google job website"
"what must we do differently"

innovation: capacity to solve problems creatively
"smart creatives...is the new coin of realm in the innovation economy"
in interviews, smart innovators said that they succeeded IN SPITE of their schooling, not because of it
could point to teachers that had been good
those teachers were innovators, doing things differently than most others
remarkable pattern of teaching and learning across innovative educational places
"deep set of contradictions between" school and learning "that develops" contradictions to learn creatively

Five contradictions between what we do and what works

1. Rewards and measures for individual success: but team based success is what works in innovation
2. Compartmentalization of subjects and favoring specialization: but innovation happens at boundaries of boundaries of specialization
3. Culture of passivity: but creative problem solving needs active engagement in solving real problems
4. Failure...worse thing that could happen to a kid. "how frightened they were of making a single mistake...a sense of compliance and risk aversion" but it takes failure to get to new ways of thinking. "you're either competent or you're not" We all have learned more from our successes than our failures. We learn from trial and error
5. Extrinsic motivation--kids were more far far more instrictly motivated: "make a difference, do something of real value" Play, passion, and purpose: parents took their kids curiosity differently; to find and pursue a real passion than succeed academically. Not only on this earth to serve ourselves

Clip of "Most Likely to Succeed"

Five things to consider:

1. help your community understand this changing world and what are the competencies that matter most in this changing world
2. re-imagine the high school experience: skills needed for work, citizenship have converged: have to teach and assess core competencies; respond to rich content; EdLeader 21
3. innovation fund for educational research and development for teachers: "what's your R&D budget?"
4. have to give kids meaningful choices about their futures: "college ready may be giving kids message that only college matters" "there are a lot of kids out there who don't want to go to college, and they're afraid"
5. want kids to be architects of their own learning Googletime: have a certain percentage of time to work on your own projects. High school should be a succession of merit badges: you've learned to think like a scientist, etc