K12 Public Education: Crisis or Opportunity?

[Andrew Crapo]

Two books that I've read in the last few months have really resonated with me. The first is Clayton Christensen (Harvard Business School) et al's "Disrupting Class (Expanded Edition): How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns". The second is "The Global Achievement Gap" by Tony Wagner (Harvard Graduate School of Education). I highly recommend them. I gave a copy of the second book to each member of the Scotia-Glenville Board of Education, along with several administrators, with an invitation to read it and discuss the issues it raises, at a BOE meeting in November, 2012.

On January 15, 2013, I gave a Lunch and Learn presentation at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY, to about 100 people interested in public education. In the presentation I tried to combine material from these two books with other information about public education in general and Scotia-Glenville Central School District in specific. While that session was recorded, the recording was not of good quality so I remade it into a video as the final assignment in the "eLearning and Digital Cultures" Coursera course that I just finished. The video is about 29 minutes long and is on YouTube.

[Christine McKenna]

I read Tony Wagner's book about a year ago.  It is an excellent book -  probably one of the most thought provoking books about education I have ever read.  My husband and I discussed this book at length, and all of the skills Wagner mentions are skills that he uses frequently in his job as an engineering manager, and tries to develop in his staff.  I encouraged several folks I know to read the book - I thought it could be the basis of an extremely interesting conversation regarding what we want our schools to look like!

[Andrew Crapo]

What did you think of the "RSA Animate -- Changing Education Paradigms" video that someone posted to the District Q&A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U)?

I would love for our school to look like some of those Wagner held up as examples.
 

[Christine McKenna]

I am familiar with that youtube video - and thought it was very good - and relevant.  Have you ever read the book "Drive" by Daniel Pink?   Pink tackles the question of what motivates people, and while it is more oriented to businesses, there are definitely applications in education.