U.S. schools today cultivate and measure a fraction of what most kids are good at and even less of what they need to make the world a better place. I see this first as a father and also as a former substitute teacher, teacher, principal, and school founder.
The good news is there are many educators forging a new path.
Whether we call it “21st-century learning,” “deeper learning,” “21st-century skills,” “the 4 Cs,” “post-Gutenberg learning,” or something else, the emerging trend to move beyond teaching facts and more fully integrate complex thinking and contemporary marketplace skills into our nation’s classrooms is not a silver bullet to fix schools but a sea change in how and for what reasons we educate in an information age.
My passions, and the bulk of my work in the field, include bringing the best aspects of public, charter, and independent schools into our nation's public schools, integrating deep relationships (both between people and across academic disciplines) more fully into the instructional core, and aligning what schools nurture in students with the opportunities this moment in history offers them.
I have written about education in EdWeek, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Harvard Kennedy School Review. I have worked with Gwinnett County Public Schools, Fulton County Public Schools, New York Department of Education, Boston Public Schools, The Coca Cola Company, the Latvian Ministry of Education, Thread, and others.