What do we need to teach kids? (Part 1/4)
Dear Packy -
Your child’s education is just another design challenge. It is likely the most important challenge in their lives. No pressure…..
Here’s my advice. Start by answering 3 fundamental questions from your point of view: 1) What are the skills our economy is going to both reward disproportionately and are least likely to become obsolete? 2) Given those skills, what does your child need to know to thrive in today’s world? 3) What’s the best way for your child to learn what she needs to know?
I don’t have THE answer, but I can offer my answer, which ultimately led us down the rabbit hole of starting two charter schools for our children and creating a building toy specifically to exercise the kind of problem-solving I describe below. My wife is a 30-year educator who designed and opened about 35 schools in her role leading a school incubator for Oakland Unified and as the CEO of the city’s largest charter management organization. I spent a decade in a variety of roles fruitlessly encouraging people to make things in schools and, with one community, to rethink the fundamental structure of schools. Needless to say, this is a common conversation around our kitchen table. Our kids are now 14 and 16 and, while the jury is still out on how they turn out, the early signs are promising.
Tony Wagner answered question number one best in his book called Creating Innovators: “The solution to our economic and social challenges is the same: creating a viable and sustainable economy that creates good jobs without polluting the planet. And there is general agreement as to what that new economy must be based on. One word: innovation. We have to become the country that leads the way in developing new technologies for a sustainable planet and affordable health care. We have to become the country that creates new and better products, processes, and services that other countries want and need.”
As a lifelong entrepreneur, this makes intuitive sense to me. If we need an innovative economy, then we need innovators who solve problems that have not been solved before. This skill set is what our economy rewards disproportionately. Many of these people are household names. Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. Marconi invented the radio. Henry Ford brought us the first mass-produced car and the assembly line. Wilbur and Orville Wright invented the first heavier-than-air aircraft. It’s not just business and technology. We reward innovation in every field, some with explicit prizes. Alfred Nobel’s prizes are awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology, literature and peace.
Nor does innovation have to be high profile. Here in Alameda, Burma Superstar is the islands best restaurant year after year - they invented dishes that our community wants night after night. Now they are creating consumer packaged goods for grocery stores. In Nashville, where I grew up, Cal Turner figured out how to make parking lots work better and cheaper and built a huge company. It wasn’t high profile (though it was high-tech). We need innovators in every field.
Nor is innovation limited to just cutting-edge topics. When I was working in Fremont, I interviewed dozens of advanced manufacturing companies and was surprised by what they said. Brian Paper, who owns an integrated circuit manufacturer, summed this up, saying “I can teach people how to run the machines. I need people that can solve problems when things go wrong. That’s really hard to find.” Brian is describing creative problem-solving - in what we would call a blue-collar job of running a machine on a manufacturing line. It's a skill needed universally.
Finally, the jobs of innovators won't be outsourced. Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, in their book “That Used to Be Us” say:
“Forget blue-collar and white-collar. There are two types of workers in our economy: creators and servers. Creators are the ones driving productivity—writing code, designing chips, creating drugs, running search engines. Servers, on the other hand, service these creators (and other servers) by building homes, providing food, offering legal advice, and working at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Many servers will be replaced by machines, by computers, and by changes in how business operates.”
Only the creators/innovators will be immune to outsourcing. No matter what the profession and no matter whether it is well-defined (doctor, lawyer, engineer, manufacturing line, etc.), knowing how to innovate will serve them well.
But can innovation be taught? Absolutely. It helps to break it down. That’s next.
Parker