Group Notes from Discovery Educators Webinar with Dan Pink

December 13, 2007

Notes as taken by 29 participants.

• _Right brain = creative, artistic
• Left brain = teach to the test, logical
• Impact of  Abundance - Asia - Automation
• Utility and Significance and its importance.
  
• The media often reports  the bad thing that happens quickly rather than the quiet good thing that happens slowly.
• The role of school is not to deliver employees to employers however this dominates conversation

Abundance

• Material prosperity
• Good news that happens quietly doesn't get the airtime of bad news that happens quickly -- that is a profound statement
• Utility and significance......utility is ubiquitous
  

Offshoring and outsourcing

• Not a huge number of white color jobs lost to offshoring  (only 400,000 jobs lost to this)
  This outsourcing has been under hyped.
  
• India has 1 billion people -- a tiny fraction of india's population
•  White Collar processes are being automated like blue collar jobs have in the past..(i.e. uncontested divorces)
• 1 million us tax reports done in India last year

 

Design - Putting significance and meaning to what is learned

 rest are in the book

High Tech??

High Concept and High Touch matter more

A world of ubiquitous facts

Putting facts into context and deliver with emotional impact

 

  Novelty and Nuance

• in education, going the other direction
• Alexandria--need to prepare kids for
• Novelty, nuance and customisation....business world
• Education = standardisation
• an education world going toward right answers
• We need to move towards solving problems, designing solutions, facilitating change (from Vicki)
  

We need to prepare kids for their future, not our past!

 

SOLUTIONS?

1. New metrics:

What gets measured gets done.  We are not as good at measuring other abilities. 

Attributes of an educational system going in the right direction

 

Robert Sternberg

 

Rainbow Project alternative SAT

 

Better predictor of success in college than the SAT

• Transcript of an interview with Dr. Sternberg
• Video interview with Dr. Sternberg where he gives his definition of intelligence  (wmv format)
• USA Today Article
  

 

Quote about SAT

 

Generalists score better than specialists.  Need for new met

JSPE testing program

2. Multi-mania for measuring things.

 

• "Multi-mania"
• be able to ask good questions...as well as have good answers
• Example: medical students in art gallery

• We need to prepare kids for the multi-ness in the world. We're not multi enough in schools.  Rich Manisco? sp?  Fairfax Co. Schools
• Teaching medical students empathy.  Not a vending machine for correct answers but rather a person who can ask the right questions.  Extraordinary observation skills.  Algorithmic left brain, yes, but holisticly like a painter or sculptor.

3. Arts Integration

Arts Integration is important

teaching design--need more art, not less

Ornamental or essential??

 

4.  Life integration--integrate students into the rest of the world

How can we make school MATCH the real world- currently subjects don't match - create new majors, courses

Kevin Jarrett - SL in the classroom  (We will need to talk to him if we want to do something with SL in the classroom.)

It should be at all levels.  Kids are already artists.

The Big Picture Schools

• Integrate kids into the rest of the world - big picture schools - Providence
• What are you interested in? Build curriculum around it
  
• This is so important. Good teachers find out what their students are interested in.

5. Autonomy

• Autonomy -- Kids need autonomy -- teachers need autonomy
• However, trend moving in opposite direction
• Teachers' work is heroic--not trying to make $$, trying to make a difference for children.
  
• Jannita_Demian@discovery.com -- To join a discussion group about the book
• Alan levine brilliant '50 ways to tell a story'
  

 

"Preparing our students for their future, not our past "

dp@danpink.com

- His e-mail

Quotes from the conclusion of the Session

• He wants his kids to be the best they can  and to crave learning.  Parents are also responsible for building the love of learning and curiosity
• Admins are frustrated as much as teachers. Difficult jobs
• Citizens need to make an urgent economic case- make the arguments.
• Need to have CEO's to talk about that they need to be able to hire people who are creative. want to hire people who have broader capacities 
•  bubble test weenies - LOL
• We need to continue to POUND on it - we don't know which POUND will be the one that makes the difference
  Email Jannita_Demian@discovery.com   to join a discussion group re Pink's book and concepts
• But the process of giving them a problem they couldn't do alone and not giving them an answer was a good one -- we need to give students "problems" and encourage them to solve it. - Vicki Davis
• Schools had a role when information was scarce.....what is the purpose now where information is abundant??
• The traditional role of the school is being called into question- where information is abundant and the half-life of knowledge is amazingly short
• "Knowledge is no longer scarce"
• How can a teacher produce that -- I always say -- if you're always weighing the chicken, when do you feed the chicken? The chicken is skinny b/c the chicken is always on the scale.  - Vicki Davis

Upcoming Pink Project

New book coming out in April: Manga as from Japan 

  160 page graphic novel: The Last Career Guide you will ever need

Another book:

The science and economics of intrinsic motivation

www.danpink.com

 

he's a blogger

Action Items

1 - A Delicious tag about collaborative projects encouraging design  - Set up 12/13/2007  wholenewmind_projects - -see http://del.icio.us/tag/wholenewmind_projects

2 - a flickr photo pool on design

 

Chat Room Text is available through Lisa Parisi ... I archived the chat but it is too large to include here (so says Google Docs).  If you would like a copy, DM me at twitter - lparisi.