Beyond Schools

This is a topic that I've become passionate.  The bricks and mortar approach to education, and our entire industrial-era corporatized system for learning simply does not fit the creative economy. 

Gary Thompson of Futures, Inc. presented an intriguing Download Beyond_Schools.pdf on this at yesterday's Texas Lyceum. 

Here's a quick snippet of my thinking on the subject from the version of Who's Your City I'm currently working on. Some additional thoughts captured here and here.

What about schools? What most parents want is a school where students are excited and engaged in their work—a learning organization.

But too many schools are “broken” to use Bill Gates’ phrase.
As I hear from parents and educators across the country, too many schools squelch the creativity out of kids.

I can attest to this. While I loved school through 4^th or 5^thgrade, by junior high-school, I found myself increasingly bored. I was good at school and did well on tests, even with little preparation. So I simply “dropped in.” My focal point was the garage band I had with my brother and our daily practice sessions in my parent’s basement. High school was even worse, and I can certainly understand why so many otherwise energetic kids drop out.

Many of the smartest kids I ever met dropped out of school simply because they were bored. I often say there is a real opportunity to engage these kids when they drop out, finding ways to encourage them to learn by embracing their real interests—art, fashion, music, technology, sports, whatever it might be.

My colleagues at the Gallup Organization have found that a key element of making better schools is to engage the teachers. I always get upset when commentators blame teachers for bad schools. My teachers had a profound influence on my life. The key, as the 

Gallup study shows, is to engage teachers. Just like the best and most productive companies engage their employees. The best and most successful schools engage their teachers.

The schools we have today are failing us and parents increasingly know it. They’re big, bloated bureaucratic institutions – a hangover from the industrial era – that fail to excite kids and engage their full faculties. That’s why an increasing number of parents are looking for alternatives like home schooling for example.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this critical issue.

Comments

[Charlotta]

Being brought up in tolerant Sweden, the basic idea in school was that no-one should perform better than anyone else on the tests or in class. Being a great fan of math and finishing my book faster than everybody else I just was sent out to play, to let the others catch up. In our system children very seldom got challenged to perform even better, since that would make a greater variaty among the children in the classroom.

Though, slowly this is changing from what I hear. Kids technology centers are opened often on the initiative of municipalities. Children will not only be appreciated for great athletics perfomance (which for some reason always has been accepted here), but also those great on math will be awarded.

In our Swedish case I think the basic change has been sending the message that it is OK to perform well, not just being on the average.

[Frank Ruscica]

Dr. Florida,

How are you? Toward improving education, I have developed a business plan for establishing the most popular online market for customized education and career services. The plan was recently circulated internally at Verizon, reaching the Senior VP level. Earlier versions were praised effusively by executives at Amazon.com and Microsoft.

I am presently seeking to raise $300K from angel investors. Toward this end, I am wondering if you can point me toward angels who would be good sources of "smart money" for a startup like mine.

Toward making you comfortable re: providing such recommendations, upon request I am happy to send along my business plan's one-page executive summary, and/or the full plan.

Thanks kindly for your consideration.

Best regards,

Frank Ruscica
Co-Founder
The Opportunity Services Group
(631) 379-4843