Education is not a linear process of preparation for the future: it is about cultivating the talents and sensibilities through which we can live our best lives in the present and create the best futures for us all.
The changes that are needed in schools will take root more readily if local and national policies actually support them.
The key to raising achievement is to recognize that teaching and learning is a relationship.
To be globally competitive, developed countries must offer something qualitatively different, that is, something that cannot be obtained at a lower cost in developing countries. And that something is certainly not great test scores in a few subjects or the so-called basic skills.”4.
We have found that many of our students who were not successful before coming to Boston Arts Academy find their way to engaging with school through the arts, because school isn’t just another thing that they hate and are bad at.
Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman and polymath, knew that a balanced, liberal education for all was essential for the proper flourishing of the American dream.
What Einstein seemed to understand is that intellectual growth and creativity come through embracing the dynamic nature of intelligence. Growth comes through analogy, through seeing how things connect rather than only seeing how they might be different.
If you design a system to do something specific, don’t be surprised if it does it. If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity that suppresses individuality, imagination, and creativity, don’t be surprised it that’s what it does.
Farmers base their livelihoods on raising crops. But farmers do not make plants grow. They don’t attach the roots, glue on the petals, or color the fruit. The plant grows itself. Farmers and gardeners provide the conditions for growth. Good farmers know what those conditions are, and bad ones don’t.
They have discovered their Element – the place where the things you love to do and the things that you are good at come together. The.
Creative teams are dynamic. Diversity of talents is important, but it is not enough. Different ways of thinking can be an obstacle to creativity. Creative teams find ways of using their differences as strengths, not weaknesses.
Whatever the reason for it, dropping out is a symptom of a deeper problem in the system as a whole, not the problem itself. If you were running a business and every year you lost more than a third of your customers, you might start to wonder if the real problem was them or your business.
Creativity is a step beyond imagination because it requires that you actually do something rather than lie around thinking about it.
You can think of creativity as a conversation between what we’re trying to figure out and the media we are using.
Often we need other people to help us recognize our real talents. Often we can help other people to discover theirs.
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
This is true of your own life. If you open yourself to new experiences, the odds improve exponentially of one of those experiences changing your world in a profoundly positive.
Groupthink can diminish the group as a whole.
The power of groups is that they validate the common interests of their members. The danger of groupthink is that it dulls their individual judgment. The group thinks in unison and behaves en masse.
We don’t know who we can be until we know what we can do.
One of the most basic reasons for thinking that it’s too late to be who you are truly capable of being is the belief that life is linear.