Author Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, might have erred with his choice of title for the book.
What he has to say, though, is timely, crucial information.
At first glance the title does not entice the casual bookstore browser to pick up the text. However, the author’s questions are the kind we ought to have asked ourselves decades ago.
I am a retired teacher from an inner city high school and wish this book had been available during my time in the classroom.
The subtitle, “Why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need—And what we can do about it,” urged me to examine this text more closely. Parents and educators alike puzzle why the majority of students are ill prepared for life in our current world.
What struck me as valid is the author’s premise that it is no longer so vital to know the correct answers, but the ability to ask the right questions. The Greek teacher/philosopher Socrates knew this and taught this long ago—to think critically, a skill we seem to have buried with advancing technologies.
The book primarily addresses our loss of genuine curiosity—about the world around us and how such loss could easily lead to failure and how recapturing this skill would open the road to success.
When my own children grew up and asked me questions I would not provide answers but tell them, “How do you think it works,” or “What would make this come out better?” I did the same in my classrooms.
Wagner has visited classrooms across our nation for several years, arriving unannounced, and observed what is going on inside. Not only that: he also dialogued with business people, with individuals on airplanes and asked them, “What qualities do you most want in a potential new employee?”
The surprising result: he heard over and over that the single most important skill is to ask the right questions!
And what is happening in the schools? Pupils and students are rewarded for replying with the correct answers. But in our changing world it becomes apparent, so he argues, that there is no one, single, correct answer for anything; if so, “only for a nanosecond.”
Wagner laments the multiple choice test questions that merely teach students how to choose an option, not how to solve open-ended problems. That approach is unacceptable in the workplace, he argues.
When my students applied for jobs and I had to write recommendations, the potential employers asked three things: how prompt was this student’s class attendance; did this student hand in assignments on time; and how did this person resolve an interpersonal conflict during a class.
Sadly, an unfavorable reply to the employer would bar this student from a job.
The book’s author outlines seven survival skills for today’s students: Critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration across networks and leading by influence; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurism; effective written and oral communication; assessing and analyzing information; and curiosity and imagination.
Looking at these attributes makes it clear to me that these are equally valuable for business success, but perhaps even more important, are imperatives for good citizenship. Where would a jury panel be without the ability to solve open-ended problems?
Wagner closes with real-life case studies and profiles schools that have experienced remarkable success by combining basics with his proposed seven survival skills.
He proposes new approaches to teacher certification and administrators. He also warns that students get quickly bored having to learn facts that are irrelevant for their lives or careers.
Wagner’s book could not have come at a better time—perhaps even as a vehicle to stem the high dropout rate in our nation’s schools.
The author has served as Senior Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One can find him at www.schoolchange.org. “The Global Achievement Gap” by Tony Wagner is published by Basic Books.
What he has to say, though, is timely, crucial information.
At first glance the title does not entice the casual bookstore browser to pick up the text. However, the author’s questions are the kind we ought to have asked ourselves decades ago.
I am a retired teacher from an inner city high school and wish this book had been available during my time in the classroom.
The subtitle, “Why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need—And what we can do about it,” urged me to examine this text more closely. Parents and educators alike puzzle why the majority of students are ill prepared for life in our current world.
What struck me as valid is the author’s premise that it is no longer so vital to know the correct answers, but the ability to ask the right questions. The Greek teacher/philosopher Socrates knew this and taught this long ago—to think critically, a skill we seem to have buried with advancing technologies.
The book primarily addresses our loss of genuine curiosity—about the world around us and how such loss could easily lead to failure and how recapturing this skill would open the road to success.
When my own children grew up and asked me questions I would not provide answers but tell them, “How do you think it works,” or “What would make this come out better?” I did the same in my classrooms.
Wagner has visited classrooms across our nation for several years, arriving unannounced, and observed what is going on inside. Not only that: he also dialogued with business people, with individuals on airplanes and asked them, “What qualities do you most want in a potential new employee?”
The surprising result: he heard over and over that the single most important skill is to ask the right questions!
And what is happening in the schools? Pupils and students are rewarded for replying with the correct answers. But in our changing world it becomes apparent, so he argues, that there is no one, single, correct answer for anything; if so, “only for a nanosecond.”
Wagner laments the multiple choice test questions that merely teach students how to choose an option, not how to solve open-ended problems. That approach is unacceptable in the workplace, he argues.
When my students applied for jobs and I had to write recommendations, the potential employers asked three things: how prompt was this student’s class attendance; did this student hand in assignments on time; and how did this person resolve an interpersonal conflict during a class.
Sadly, an unfavorable reply to the employer would bar this student from a job.
The book’s author outlines seven survival skills for today’s students: Critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration across networks and leading by influence; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurism; effective written and oral communication; assessing and analyzing information; and curiosity and imagination.
Looking at these attributes makes it clear to me that these are equally valuable for business success, but perhaps even more important, are imperatives for good citizenship. Where would a jury panel be without the ability to solve open-ended problems?
Wagner closes with real-life case studies and profiles schools that have experienced remarkable success by combining basics with his proposed seven survival skills.
He proposes new approaches to teacher certification and administrators. He also warns that students get quickly bored having to learn facts that are irrelevant for their lives or careers.
Wagner’s book could not have come at a better time—perhaps even as a vehicle to stem the high dropout rate in our nation’s schools.
The author has served as Senior Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One can find him at www.schoolchange.org. “The Global Achievement Gap” by Tony Wagner is published by Basic Books.
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