Barnabas File

Despite major shifts  in society, the economy, and technology, changes in education have been slow (even glacial) in coming.  Whether we are looking at education for children, teenagers, or adults, we see systems  grounded in the 19th or early 20th centuries that seem impervious to adaptation. In Most Likely to Succeed:  Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era, authors Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith draw on their backgrounds  in education (Wagner) and innovation (Dintersmith) as well as their experience as parents to challenge the status quo in education. Here are their primary arguments: • Rapid advances in innovation are eliminating structured routine jobs from our economy, leaving millions of young Americans at risk. • The critical skills young adults need in the twenty-first century for careers in the world of innovation, and for responsible citizenship, are the very skills the school years eviscerate. • The education policies our country is ...

Perhaps you do not think of yourself as an innovator, but your success as a leader may well depend on your ability to be innovative—finding new ways to use more effectively the resources you have or creating a new approach to solve a significant problem or meet a major societal need.  Tony Wagner, author of Creating Innovators , believes that the skills or habits to be a successful innovator can be nurtured, taught, and mentored.  His conclusion is based on lengthy research and many interviews with young innovators, their parents, and mentors. Wagner believes that the essential qualities of a successful innovator are: Curiosity—the habit of asking good questions and a desire to understand deeply situations and processes on a deeper level. Collaboration—the ability to listen and learn from others whose experiences and perspectives differ from your own. Associative or integrative thinking—the skill or insight to perceive how different, often divergent, components re...