When kids say “school is boring,” I listen. For years, I’ve heard this from the highest achieving students and the students that struggle with the structures of school. I believe its actually at the center of a complex problem in education. I’ve become a bit obsessed with this idea, because I believe there’s no excuse for boredom. I believe it’s a choice students and teachers make everyday.
Because school’s not boring when kids think of their friends, when they think of that teacher that made a difference, when they think of the clubs and teams to which they committed more time and endless energy. School is not boring because we live in the single greatest time in human history to be a learner, to be a student. We have more information at our fingertips than ever before and we can access it instantly.
So, when kids say, “school is boring,” it’s my job to listen and then to design and build experiences to change that perception.
What kind of experiences will we design? We want our students to be smart, brave and bold; or how about designing for courage, compassion, resilience as three virtues of education. We need to create experiences that help kids discover their strengths because of school, not in spite of school.
The Office of Ingenuity is our project to support this vision.
Our belief drives us to…
1. Invest in "Innovators, NOT Innovations." = Teachers with the right support offer the greatest ROI for social impact and change. = Professional Development
2. Broker and Facilitate Revolutionary Relationships between school communities, companies, and universities. It's time for industries and universities to re-imagine their role in public schools through shared values, aka building the innovation pipeline. = Strategic Collaboration
3. Unshackle Ingenuity with Integration. Schools created silos of learning (isolated departments/disciplines) but the brain doesn't work that way, nor does the world. = Curriculum Integration
4. Grapple with Global issues, Locally. Technology as a tool will support scalable solutions, but transformational learning is still the result of thought, action, and empathy. = Purposeful Education
This is my way of giving structure to the value of the “velcro-pants” ideas that are needed to design the future of education, because learning has no limits.