Sir Ken Robinson - How To Escape Education's Death Valley

The Art and Science of Making Things - Seth Godin

Science Prodigy

What if every student is a prodigy?

What if your students are prodigies?

Prodigy Mechanic

What if every student is a prodigy?

What if your students are prodigies?

Prodigy Artst

What if every student is a prodigy?

What if your students are prodigies?

Prodigy Surfer

What if every child is a prodigy?

What if every student is a prodigy?

Prodigy Poet

What if every child is a prodigy?

What if every student is a prodigy?

Prodigy Chef

What if every child was a prodigy? What if your students are all prodigies?

What Can Happen When A 13 Year Old Kid Leaves Traditional Education

The Gold Program - Introducing Kids To Their Unique Strengths

As a strengths advocate I lean heavily toward helping people grow in their understanding of strengths by moving toward more granular strengths based assessments. Marcus Buckingham offers StandOut which has 9 different themes or talent groupings. Myers-Briggs offers 16 ways of understanding the uniqueness of individuals. Strengthsfinder, which Buckingham helped build during his time at Gallup offers 34 different themes and perhaps serval hundred threads.

But DISC is still a great strengths assessment. It begins with 4 very easy to understand groupings. The "Gold" Program, introduced below is specifically designed DISC for kids. If you are a parent or work with children, check it out!

Play, Passion and Purpose with Harvard's Tony Wagner

Tony Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade. Tony consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility.

The Finland Phenomenon

Finland now consistently leads the world in education including international test score results. The students start at a later age (about age 7), have shorter school days than there U.S. counterparts and have almost no homework.

What's Up With That?

A Harvard University Professor takes a look.

How Do You Help Your Students Develop A Head For Business?

If you wanted a child to grow and develop a head for business, what type of classes would you encourage him to take? Math? Science? Accounting? Surely you could make a case for each of these choices. But in an article for Inc. Magazine, Kevin Daum makes a pretty good case for the arts, specifically theater arts.

Daum argues, "Performing arts students must create a concept from scratch, refine it so they can articulate a compelling vision, recruit skilled labor, and manage everyone to completion on time and on budget, since moving opening night is never an option. They also get to sell their product and collect immediate customer response in the form of ticket sales and applause. This process is completed by millions of students several times a year, all over the world."

Of course, from a strengths perspective, we want kids to find the marketplace that leverages their passions and talents. If that happens to be math and science, that's wonderful. If that happens to be shop class, that's wonderful as well.

I maintain that I learned more about business from my high school baseball coach than any class I took. Ironically, he was also my high school business teacher and a very good one. But it was on the baseball field where I learned to compete, to win and lose, to understand the importance of both natural talent and developed skill and to cooperate with teammates toward a common goal.

Yet sports programs have been dropped, arts programs have been canceled and auto shop has been eliminated from the curriculum. I fully support science, technology, engineering and math or STEM classes. But they're not more important than theater arts, baseball or auto shop.

One would think that math and accounting are irreplaceable components of running any successful business. And maybe they are. But Richard Branson was already a full-fledge billionaire that had successfully started hundreds of businesses before his accountant was able to help him fully understand the difference between gross sales and net profit.

To read Kevin Daum's full article in Inc. click here

The One Thing Your Child Needs by Jenifer Fox

Sugata Mitra's New School System Idea Wins 1 Million Dollar TED Prize

A professor of educational technology recently won the $1m TED Prize for his innovative approach to education. Sugata Mitra's schools let kids use computers to organize their own learning with retired, mostly female, schoolteachers (the "grannies") beaming in via Skype to answer their questions.



To learn more, here is an article in Wired Magazine.

How To Graduate From College With A Job You Love - Jullien Gordon

"Breakaway" - Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

This terrific video short was produced and distributed by Farmers Insurance. It's worth watching several times. Your second time through, pay attention to the lyrics from the song "Breakaway", performed by Kelly Clarkson. It was written by Avril Lavigne, Bridget Benenate and Mathew Gerrard.

Perfect!

Neurons to Networks: The Science Behind Your STRENGTHSPATH

There is solid science behind the STRENGTHSPATH principle. This short video, From Neurons to Networks is a good short explanation of the science supporting what I teach. Your STRENGTHSPATH is really a metaphor for neural pathways in the brain. Although I'm also a firm believer in the concept of lifelong nueroplasticity, or the ability to learn and grow throughout life, this video establishes that our hard-wiring begins before birth and is fairly complete early in life. The STRENGTHSPATH Philosophy is geared for the most part toward nurturing your students's nature, rather than attempting to completely re-wire what some might label as a weakness. Of course weaknesses must sometimes be addressed and managed, but the emphasis should always be on reinforcing what your student naturally does well.

Tom Peters On Education

Warren Buffett's Advice to Kids

Warren Buffett has a program for kids called "Warren Buffett's Secret Millionaire's Club". Each segment has great financial advice. But if you weren't aware, Buffett is a huge promoter and terrific example of the strengths message I communicate regularly on this blog. Check out this short clip titled, "Gotta Dance".