Interviews

Trial and Error is Your Friend - Not Your Enemy, with Tony Wagner

We typically highlight a few of the most interesting quotes from the podcast - by which we seek to tempt you to listen.

The Enrollhand Team

Oct 3, 2019 • 2 min read

“The world simply doesn’t care what our students know anymore, because Google knows everything. What the world cares about is what our students can do with what they know. We live in the innovation era now.” - Tony Wagner

Audio version:

Summary

We typically highlight a few of the most interesting quotes from the podcast - by which we seek to tempt you to listen. Tony Wagner is the kind of guest who makes us want to dangle the entire transcript in front of our audience. Everything he says deserves to be a featured quote.

As one of the most cutting edge thinkers in innovation and leadership, and a globally recognized voice in education, Tony Wagner is a Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute. He comes to us after twenty years at Harvard, and he worked as a high school teacher, principal, and university professor. He is the founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility, and has published six books: Most Likely To Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for The Innovation Era, co-authored by Ted Dintersmith; Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World; and The Global Achievement Gap.

In this podcast, he goes to the heart of the problem faced by schools and parents today and gently leads us forward with an understanding of the magnitude of change he is proposing, what it will take to make it happen, and the paradigm shift we will see if we can persist through the challenges.

Let’s listen...

Quotes:

02:27 “The world simply doesn’t care what our students know anymore, because Google knows everything. What the world cares about is what our students can do with what they know. We live in the innovation era now.”

04:21 “We are born curious, creative, imaginative; that’s the human DNA. The longer kids stay in school, the less curious they become.”

06:08 “The first starting point is to help adults in your school community - both parents and teachers - to understand the nature of a changing world. That’s the first job of a leader.”

09:09 “Too often, leaders feel pressured to provide the answers. (Instead, teachers) need to feel empowered to find better solutions.”

16:16 “In the world of innovation, it’s - fail early, fail often, fail fast, fail forward, fail cheap, but FAIL and learn from failure.”

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

Tony’s books on Amazon - including his soon to be published memoir, Learning by Heart - https://www.amazon.com/Tony-Wagner/e/B001H6OMJ6%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

“The Finland Phenomenon” - http://www.tonywagner.com/the-finnish-phenomenon-inside-the-worlds-most-surprising-school-system-a-great-resource-now-available/

All Together Now by Suzi Boss - https://www.suzieboss.com/

The Hewlett Foundation - https://hewlett.org/

Mastery Transcript Consortium - https://mastery.org/

Measures of Effective Teaching Project, The Gates Foundation - https://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2013/01/measures-of-effective-teaching-project-releases-final-research-report

Where to learn more about the guest:

Website - http://www.tonywagner.com/

Tony at Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/tony-wagner-9b53aa7