IN THIS GROUNDBREAKING BOOK, education expert Tony Wagner provides a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. He explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators. In profiling compelling young American innovators such as Kirk Phelps, product manager for Apples first iPhone, and Jodie Wu, who founded a company that builds bicycle-powered maize shellers in Tanzania, Wagner reveals how the adults in their lives nurtured their creativity and sparked their imaginations, while teaching them to learn from failures and persevere. Wagner identifies a patterna childhood of creative play leads to deep-seated interests, which in adolescence and adulthood blossom into a deeper purpose for career and life goals. Play, passion, and purpose: These are the forces that drive young innovators.
Wagner shows how we can apply this knowledge as educators and what parents can do to compensate for poor schooling. He takes readers into the most forward-thinking schools, colleges, and workplaces in the country, where teachers and employers are developing cultures of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation. The result is a timely, provocative, and inspiring manifesto that will change how we look at our schools and workplaces, and provide us with a road map for creating the change makers of tomorrow.
Creating Innovators will feature its own innovative elements: more than sixty original videos that expand on key ideas in the book through interviews with young innovators, teachers, writers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs, including Thomas Friedman, Dean Kamen, and Annmarie Neal. Produced by filmmaker Robert A. Compton, the videos are accessible via links and QR codes placed throughout the ebook text or by visiting www.creatinginnovators.com.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CREATING INNOVATORS
Many have written about the paucity of innovation in America. Others have chronicled our schools struggles to improve on dimensions of skills that matter. In this book, Wagner has positioned himself astride these critical challenges in a way that clarifies what we must do to address these problems and how we can do itmaking this a must-read for anyone interested in the education of our nation.
Clayton Christensen, professor, Harvard Business School, and author of Disrupting Class
Tony Wagner addresses one of our most urgent questions: How do we create the next generation of innovators? By telling the stories of young creators, and by taking us inside cutting-edge programs, Wagner shows that the answer isnt to double down on outmoded, formulaic solutionsbut to embrace the principles of play, passion, and purpose. Creating Innovators is important reading for anyone concerned about the future.
Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind
If you are an educator, a parent of a child struggling with conventional education, or an employer looking to have a pipeline of creative talent, then read this book, take note of the ideas, and play your part in creating the change we must make happen.
Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO
In the equation of world success, superior innovation is the only factor that can keep America #1. Two passionate citizens, innovators in their own right, have produced a compelling prescription for our time. Read it, watch it, and spread the word.
Mitch Daniels, governor, State of Indiana
Go to www.creatinginnovators.com to learn more about this book and to stay connected.
To View the Trailer for CREATING INNOVATORS , Scan this QR Code
TONY WAGNER is the first innovation education fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard and the founder and former co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Wagner consults widely to public and independent schools and foundations around the country and has served as senior adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A former high school teacher, K8 principal, and university professor in teacher education, Wagner is the author of five books, including The Global Achievement Gap.
www.tonywagner.com
ROBERT A. COMPTON (video collaborator) has produced eight feature-length documentary films on global education and innovation, including Two Million Minutes, Win in China, and The Finland Phenomenon . Prior to filmmaking, Compton had a successful twenty-five-year career as a venture capital investor and high-tech entrepreneur.
www.2mminutes.com
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More Advance Praise for Creating Innovators
To combat the competitive threat from economies like Brazil, Russia, India, and China, we must develop empowered entrepreneurs and innovators. Creating Innovators is a masterful work that shows us how. Tony Wagners case studies reveal more about these fine innovators than he may have realized. World leaders, business executives, educators, policy makers, and parents, take note!
Dr. Annmarie Neal, Center for Leadership Innovation, and former chief talent officer, Cisco Systems
In my life I have met and worked with individuals who help create the world they live ininnovators. Their lives are so much more fulfilling than people who live in a world of someone elses creation. This book, in a clear, tangible way, explores how to help young people access skills of innovation and lead richer lives.
Brad Anderson, former CEO, Best Buy Corporation
A pioneering and invaluable work about what it really takes to build innovation capability in societyby planting and cultivating innovators, one person at a time.
John Kao, chairman of the Institute for Large Scale Innovation and author of Innovation Nation
Tony Wagner offers an indispensable guide to US education and economic strategy. Unless young Americans can create their own jobs, they face the prospect of limited economic opportunity. In delving into remarkable initiatives that foster innovation and deep learning, Wagner offers hope that we can retain global economic leadership in the twenty-first century. This book is a must for every parent, teacher, administrator, and policy maker in our country.
Ted Dintersmith, partner emeritus, Charles River Ventures
Also by Tony Wagner
How Schools Change
Making the Grade
Change Leadership
The Global Achievement Gap
Films by Robert A. Compton
The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the Worlds Most Surprising School System
Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination
Video content is available via QR code or at www.creatinginnovators.com. If you access video content through a mobile device, message and data rates may apply. Video content may not be available indefinitely.
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Copyright 2012 by Tony Wagner
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