purpose

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Innovation-ready?

Are you an innovator?  Are you thinking about your student as being innovation-ready (versus college-ready)?  What must we, as parents, educators, future employers, and community leaders do to enable our young learners to be innovation-ready?

Through the eyes of young innovators themselves and their profound stories (including conversations with their parents, teachers and employers),creatinginnovators Dr. Tony Wagner, explores these and many more questions in his groundbreaking book:  Creating Innovators…The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World.  Dr. Wagner carefully constructs a deeper understanding as to what it means to innovate and how we need to best develop the capacities of students today to become more innovative in what they do throughout their lives.

Nurturing creativity and sparking imagination while teaching children how to learn from failure with perseverance is paramount.  Dr. Wagner identifies a clear pattern:  “a childhood of creative play leads to deep-seated interests.”  In turn and over time, these special interests develop and blossom into a deeper purpose for career and life choices.  He notes:  “Embracing the principles of play, passion, and purpose…these are the forces driving young innovators today.” 

Just to prove his point, Dr. Wagner’s book features its own innovative elements:  more than 60 original videos expanding on the key ideas of the book.  Produced by filmmaker Robert Compton, the videos are embedded into the eBook edition and accessible in the print edition via QR codes (talk about using my 21st Century devices creatively!).

Over the next few weeks, I’m exploring Dr. Wagner’s challenge and call; I’ll share my findings along the way.  It’s time we all play our part in creating the transformation to innovation!  Are YOU innovation-ready?

Note:  Please join us tomorrow evening for our innovative C.A.T.C.H. Committee’s annual Family Chili Cookoff Event starting @ 6:00 p.m.

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DRIVEn and Motivated!

An admired colleague of mine recently visited with me about a fascinating book I started a few months back (and then put down for other more pressing reads)—Daniel Pink’s DRIVE.  As a lifelong learner and reader, I do my best to keep up with current trends.  Mr. Pink’s works are always thought-provoking and challenging reads; after all, he is often called an “accidental scientist.”  He specifically focuses in this book on the science behind motivation–what really motivates anyone to do good work?  What really motivates someone to always want to do great work?  He shares three factors for enduring motivation:  autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  Continuing the book, he got me to thinking about our classrooms here at Miller and how we work within all three areas.  I asked some tough questions:

  • How can we foster autonomy (the ability to direct time, task, and technique) for our learners and their classroom leaders?
  • How can we provide mastery opportunities for all learners and their classroom leaders?
  • How can we ensure learners and classroom leaders find purpose (beyond extrinsic rewards) in their school work?

These are hard questions to ponder as we move into (what I affectionately call) “new STAARy horizons in public education.  We are so much more than a test score, and because of societal changes, we are expected to do so much more than teach the basic curriculum now.  WHEW…it’s mind-blogging at best!  Here’s hoping you find ways to foster autonomy, provide mastery, and ensure purpose with us because we need you!

Note:  Our campus field trip is tomorrow!  We’re so excited!