As provided by Tom Peters Author of Re-Imagine 
Tom’s list is as follows:• Committed
• Determined to succeed
• Focused
• Passionate
• Irrational about life projects
• Ahead of their time/paradigm busters
• Impatient/action obsessed.
• Made lots of people mad
• Flouted the chain of command
• Creative/quirky/ peculiar/rebels/irreverent
• Masters of improvisation/thrive on chaos/exploit chaos
• Rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission
• Bone honest
• In tune with their followers aspirations.
Elsewhere Tom talks about all progress depending on PPP – personally pissed off people. He calls this innovation source number 1.There is no number 2! It about people who always put into practice ‘plan B’ –whose only strategy is doing something and keeping what works; continual improvisers.
Other writers note that creatively talented individuals, innovators and entrepreneurs rarely did well at school. Looking at the above list it is not hard to work out why.
What are the attributes of future learners that underpin your school?
Traditional schools seem to value conformity, obedience and control and a ‘one size fits all’ mentality. But as Tom Peters says 'one size only fits one size'. In his book Tom writes that we could not have planned schools better to destroy students' talents if we had actually tried to do so!
'Personalized learning' would seem the answer but difficult to do in a 'mass education system with its genesis in factory industrialized age.
Be great if school ‘targets’ were the number of independent talented individuals they ‘produce’ rather than always focusing on literacy and numeracy? As important as these are they are no more than the ‘foundation skills’ for a future that will depend on talented, creative and adaptable individuals.
Maybe it is time to worry about the ‘talent gap’?
The future is Peters says, 'the age of ideas, creativity and imagination'.
As Dan Pink writes in Free Agent Nation, 'the main issue in school today is irrelevance.
Coudn't agree more!
5 comments:
How come such common sense doesn't get through to Ministry bureaucrats.
It is the system that is dysfunctional - as it is currently arranged failure is endemic.
Sounds like someone I know!
Imagine a school system dedicated to developing the talents of all students. Impossible for our current system!
To achieve such 'history makers' we need proper 'personalised' learning - not just 'customisation' of the current curriculum to 'fit' each student.
Heard Tom Scott the cartoonist say on TV last night he had the nack of making all his teachers mad without even meaning to!
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