(Topics 1-70)
by Toni Krasnic
1. 1. Preface: Education transformed
1.1. Connection economy
1.2. Connect with what you're learning and doing
2. Mind map with Topics 71-133
3. This is a WikiMap
3.1. Anyone can contribute
3.2. Please don't change the headings
4. 2. A few notes about this manifesto
5. 3. Back to (the wrong) school
5.1. The disconnect
5.2. If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, he will find someone cheaper than you to do it
6. 4. What is school for?
6.1. Current schooling: poor connections
7. 5. Column A and Column B
7.1. Column B: obedient
7.2. Column A: the opposite
8. 6. Changing what we get, because we’ve changed what we need
8.1. Challenge is to change the very output of the school before we start spending even more time and money improving the performance of the school
9. 7. Mass production desires to produce mass
10. 8. Is school a civic enterprise?
11. 9. Three legacies of Horace Mann
12. 10. Frederick J. Kelly and your nightmares
13. 11. To efficiently run a school, amplify fear (and destroy passion)
14. 12. Is it possible to teach attitudes?
14.1. We can teach people to desire lifelong learning, to express themselves, and to innovate
15. 13. Which came first, the car or the gas station?
15.1. In the post-job universe, workers aren’t really what we need more of
16. 14. The wishing and dreaming problem
16.1. What are we doing to fuel our kid’s dreams?
17. 15. “When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut assistant”
18. 16. School is expensive
18.1. What is school for?
19. 17. Reinventing school
19.1. It's time for change because new technologies and new connections are changing the way schools can deliver lessons
20. 18. Fast, flexible, and focused
21. 19. Dreams are difficult to build and easy to destroy
21.1. The dreams we need are self-reliant dreams
22. 20. Life in the post-institutional future
22.1. Connection revolution rewards the work of passionate individuals, intent on carving their own paths
23. 21. Two bumper stickers
23.1. Make School Different
24. 22. The connection revolution is upon us
24.1. Connections will become the dominant force in our economy
24.2. Connecting
24.2.1. People to one another
24.2.2. Seekers to data
24.2.3. Businesses to each otehr
24.2.4. Tribes into larger organizations
24.2.5. Machines to each other
24.3. Value is created by connecting buyers to sellers, producers to consumers, and the passionate to each other
24.4. Connection leads to an extraordinary boost in productivity, efficiency, and impact
24.5. In the connected world, reputation is worth more than test scores
24.6. The connected world rewards those with an uncontrollable itch to make and lead and matter
24.7. Pre-connected vs. connected world
24.7.1. Pre-connected world: scarce information; information needed to be processed in isolation, by individuals
24.7.2. Connected world: all of that scarcity is replaced by abundance—an abundance of information, networks, and interactions
25. 23. And yet we isolate students instead of connecting them
25.1. Figuring out how to leverage the power of the group is at the heart of how we are productive today
26. 24. If education is the question, then teachers are the answer
27. 25. What if we told students the truth?
27.1. What happens when the connection revolution collides with the school?
27.2. The connection economy destroys the illusion of control
27.2.1. At some point, teenagers realize that most of school is a game, but the system never acknowledges it
27.2.2. Students empowered to learn and make decisions on their own
27.2.3. It’s impossible to lie and manipulate when you have no power
28. 26. School as a contract of adhesion
29. 27. The decision
29.1. The only people who excel are those who have decided to do so
30. 28. Exploiting the instinct to hide
30.1. The shortcut to compliance is fear
31. 29. The other side of fear is passion
31.1. Passion can overcome fear—the fear of losing, of failing, of being ridiculed
32. 30. The industrial age pervaded all of our culture
33. 31. Doubt and certainty
33.1. Our new civic and scientific and professional life is all about doubt: questioning the status quo, questioning marketing or political claims, and most of all, questioning what’s next
34. 32. Does push-pin equal poetry?
34.1. Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied
35. 33. Who will teach bravery?
35.1. Essence of the connection revolution is that it rewards those who connect, stand out, and take what feels like a chance
36. 34. Responsibility
36.1. Responsibility means that each person has to carry the ball for himself
36.2. Schools should be seen as a place for encouragement and truth-telling, a place where students go to find their passion and then achieve their goals
37. 35. Off the hook: Denying opportunities for greatness
37.1. Connectors are noticeable at first primarily for the fact that they refuse to be sheep
37.2. Are you bold enough to put yourself on the hook?
38. 36. Instead of amplifying dreams, school destroys them
39. 37. The curse of the hourly wage
40. 38. Scientific management —> Scientific schooling
41. 39. Where did the good jobs go?
41.1. Jobs of the future will require individuals willing to chart their own path, whether or not they work for someone else
41.2. Artist is someone who brings new thinking and generosity to his work, who does human work that changes another for the better
41.3. Linchpin is the worker we can’t live without, the one we’d miss if she was gone
41.4. Sadly, most artists and most linchpins learn their skills and attitudes despite school, not because of it
42. 40. What they teach at FIRST
42.1. When you dream of making an impact, obstacles are a lot easier to overcome
43. 41. Judgment, skill, and attitude
43.1. Can we teach people to care?
44. 42. Can you teach Indian food?
45. 43. How not to teach someone to be a baseball fan
45.1. The industrialized, scalable, testable solution is almost never the best way to generate exceptional learning
46. 44. Defining the role of a teacher
46.1. We don’t need a human being standing next to us to lecture us on how to find the square root of a number or sharpen an axe
46.2. What we do need is someone to persuade us that we want to learn those things, and someone to push us or encourage us or create a space where we want to learn to do them better
47. 45. Shouldn’t parents do the motivating?
47.1. Parents should have the skills and the confidence and the time to teach each child what he needs to know to succeed in a new age
48. 46. At the heart of pedagogy
48.1. Which of society’s goals are we satisfying when we spend 80 percent of the school day drilling and bullying to get kids to momentarily swallow and then regurgitate this month’s agenda?
49. 47. Academics are a means to an end, not an end
50. 48. The status quo pause
50.1. We can’t switch the mission unless we also switch the method
51. 49. Compliant, local, and cheap
52. 50. The problem with competence
52.1. Competent people resist change. Why? Because change threatens to make them less competent
53. 51. How they saved LEGO
53.1. We’re entering a revolution of ideas while producing a generation that wants instructions instead
54. 52. The race to the top (and the alternative)
55. 53. The forever recession
56. 54. Make something different
56.1. The best tactic available to every taxpayer and parent and concerned teacher is to relentlessly ask questions, not settling for the status quo
57. 55. Make something differently
57.1. The simple way to make something different is to go about it in a whole new way
58. 56. 1000 hours
58.1. How about devoting one hour a day to learning something new and unassigned?
59. 57. The economic, cultural, and moral reasons for an overhaul
60. 58. The virtuous cycle of good jobs
60.1. An economy that’s stuck needs more inventors, scientists, explorers, and artists because those are the people who open doors for others
61. 59. The evolution of dreams
62. 60. Dreamers are a problem
62.1. Dreamers don’t have special genes. They find circumstances that amplify their dreams.
63. 61. Is it possible to teach willpower?
63.1. Yes but we're not teaching it
64. 62. Pull those nails: The early creation of worker compliance
65. 63. Is it too risky to do the right thing?
66. 64. Connecting the dots vs. collecting the dots
66.1. The magic of connecting dots is that once you learn the techniques, the dots can change but you’ll still be good at connecting them
67. 65. The smartest person in the room
67.1. The smartest person in the room is the room itself: the network that joins the people and ideas in the room, and connects to those outside of it
67.2. Our task is to learn how to build smart rooms—that is, how to build networks that make us smarter, especially since, when done badly, networks can make us distressingly stupider
68. 66. Avoiding commitment
68.1. At school, we have created a vacuum of self-respect, a desert with nothing other than grades or a sports team to believe in or commit to
69. 67. The specter of the cult of ignorance
69.1. Cultural literacy is essential
69.2. If we teach our students to be passionate, ethical, and inquisitive, the facts will follow
70. 68. The Bing detour
70.1. Do you have a habit of looking for better ways of doing things?
71. 69. But what about the dumb parade?
71.1. School is successful… at the wrong thing
72. 70. Grammar and the decline of our civilization
72.1. Kids don’t care because they don’t or do theyhave to
72.2. Motivation is the only way to generate real learning, actual creativity, and the bias for action that is necessary for success
