Dec 5, 2013

#aesa2013 Thursday Opening and Keynote

#aesa2013 Thursday Opening and Keynote


High School Students perform mariachi. Very cool!



Stephen Aguirre, President of AESA:

Dr. Yong Zhao:

@YongZhaoUO - Twitter; zhaolearning.com 

"Civilizations die by suicide... Education in America is heading down that path."

"We are fixing our schools, but to what end?" 

"Race to the Top" - Are we at the top yet? No. 

Bush/Obama actually working together...
Bush: Let's have no child left behind and Obama says let's race them to the top and push them off the cliff.

Nothing wrong with standards, just don't make them "common" nor "core."

Common Core promises that if she follows CCSS, she will be ready for college and career. Is that a good goal? Can you really guarantee that? 

New measure for education: "Out of the basement success" - what do you need to stay out of the parents' basement. Talent to gain financial independence. Live independently psychologically. Be able to handle community - social independence. 

50% college grades unemployment. 50% of employed college grads in jobs that require no degree. Companies complaining that potential employees do not have the necessary talents.

In the past, the USA had been churning out people to fill routine jobs. Technology changed that: robots on assembly lines. "It sucks to lose your job to a machine." - Look at self-checkout.  Tax agents replaced by online tools. In addition, globalization has moved millions of jobs to other countries.

The new economy: Disappearance of the middle class. Bi-polar growth. Our job as educators is to recreate the middle class. Who is the new middle class? Rise of the creative class - Facebook. Apple. Not a lot of employees.  We need to shift creativity to our schools. Today, creativity is job security. We must help our children become creative. Our schools were not designed to build creativity. Our schools were designed as 'sausage makers.' Creativity is annoying - cause disruption. Schools suppress creativity. Very little is written about children and creativity. Books focus on making our sausages better. China has no education, it has test preparation. Complaint people, uncreative people - PARCC, Smarter Balance - Imperial Exams in China. Clearly defined outcomes, standards, and format of assessment. America follows this same homogenized model. 

Children at age 5, 98% creative genius. At age 10, 32%, at age 15 only 10% can be as creative as 5 year olds!

Truly creative people have no box! No "outside of the box" - they see no box!

Creative class is the new middle class.

Traditionally useless people have become useful - Honey Boo-Boo, Kim Kardashian.  "Celebrity for nothing." Nothingness is now something. We consume different services and products made by people. Daniel Pink: We used to live of necessity and now we live in age of abundance. iPhone is not a necessity. We consume nothingness. 

Personalized consumption.

USA new economy driven by IT Industry which has nothing to do with necessity. Noncognitive skills are the important skills. These are not part of the CCSS and sausage-making process.

Entrepreneurship. We need job-creators, not job seekers.  Business, Social, Intrapreneurs, Policy entrepreneurs. 

Side Effects:

Time is constant - time on one thing cannot be spent on something else.

Some skills do not work with each other - Standardized tests test skill to find answers quickly but not how to ask questions.

Enhance student strengths instead of fixing their weaknesses.






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