Hathaway Brown Innovation Summit

I am absolutely determined not to feel overwhelmed by my experience at Hathaway Brown's Innovation Summit this weekend. Why? Because that leads to passivity. Bill Christ, the head of school at Hathaway warned attendees that what matters most is what we do after we leave.

@Sedson was at the conference and I am now following her on twitter, which led me today to this video:



In today's paper, I read a post-election editorial that referenced the Bloomberg poll that showed the majority of voters believed that middle class taxes had been raised during the last two years, when, in fact, they fell. Those asked also believed that the economy was shrinking, not growing.

The article blames Democrats for not making the message clear to voters.

Not me--I blame education. How did we get to the point in this country where being informed means listening to infotainment that echos what you already think? Why don't adults in this country ask questions and do research with the primary documents readily accessible online? Could it be because we don't teach students to ask questions in school? Because we use textbooks to teach them instead of primary sources? Yes, primary sources are harder to read. They don't have reading guides or comprehension questions already prepared. Who read the health care bill? Who read even extracts of it? (Confession, not me either).

What does school look like when we decide to prepare students to run the world instead of prepare them to have a job/go to college?

So, tomorrow, I start. First up? The kids. They need to know that I'm counting on them to be able to solve some of the pretty big problems they are about to encounter. I also want to talk with students about motivation. Both Pink's autonomy, mastery, and purpose along with the success and fun they are apparently seeking. We'll see how it goes.