Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Either mentally or heaven forbid physically, right?

That's because the design of our education system does not align with the developmental needs of young people.

Human beings show up naturally with curiosity, with adaptability, with engagement.

And when we lower their engagement and curiosity to tiny little building block things that you have to pass through those bottlenecks before you can get to anything interesting, you have lost them.

What if we turned it around and we invite kids back to school with big ideas, with powerful projects, with opportunities to actually make change in their community?

Start there and work backwards to change.

The instrumental skills, the history, the writing, you know, the interviewing, the speaking, all of the skills that would play into their ability to do those projects.

We have to put the big idea first.

So you engage kids and give them the power to need school.

And then you say, OK, you need to know fractions.

Kid is excited about Zeno's paradox.

Step back.

Come over here.

I'm going to teach it to you.

Right.

Now you need to know it.

Right.

You're studying about lead in the water in Flint, Michigan.

Let me teach you some chemistry.

It's going to be very useful to you trying to figure out that thing you're really deeply engaged in.