“Tuned In” to the Future with Tony Wagner
A surprise package arrived at 11-year-old Tony Wagner’s house that permanently impacted his understanding of learning. Decades later, after a career that included twenty years of thought leadership at Harvard University and multiple best-selling books on school reform, Wagner connects the dots to the essential 21st century skills our schools are missing.
Tony Wagner is one of the nation’s leading educational reformers. His books
Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World
Most Likely To Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era
make the case for modernizing schools to focus on innovation and creative problem-solving skills. In our conversation he shares the learning experiences that shaped him and the challenges that our schools face as they try to prepare young people for a rapidly changing world.
We cover a lot of territory including:
3:15 The experience that forever changed 11-year-old Tony
6:50 Persistence creates a EUREKA moment!
8:15 Failure---Persistence---Curiosity---Learning
9:50 The genesis of Tony’s writing career
11:35 Tony’s writing teacher who wasn’t really his teacher
13:38 The piece of classic literature that provided Tony’s “a-ha moment”
15:15 The difference between Tony and Daniel Pink as students
17:10 Reflecting on Ted Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools reform movement
19:58 The destructive impact of standardized testing
20:35 The startling insights from conversations with business and military leaders
22:25 How schools kill innovation thinking
24:38 Why innovation and creative problem solving are so essential
26:17 A simple suggestion for teachers to nurture creativity
28:18 The tremendous damage of the accountability movement
30:43 The future of schools and the need for business leaders to speak out
32:40 Play, Passion, Purpose
My favorite Tony Wagner quotes (discussed at 22:16):
Not only are we not developing and cultivating creative geniuses in our schools, we may actually be doing the opposite
The culture of schooling is radically at odds with the culture of learning that creates innovators
Tony Wagner’s Website: https://www.tonywagner.com
Tony’s Books: https://www.tonywagner.com/books
About Experience Matters
Experience Matters with Steve Shapiro invites guests to reflect on the most profound learning experiences of their youth and to consider how we can reform American schools. Each episode provides clues about how parents and educators alike can engage young people in powerful, sometimes transformational experiential learning. Education can take many forms, but whatever form it takes- experience matters.