Why School? Quotes

“Tony Wagner recently said, “There’s no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person next to you. The world doesn’t care what you know. What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know.” And,”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. The illiterate will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Consider”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“In this new narrative, learning ceases to focus on consuming information or knowledge that’s no longer scarce. Instead, it’s about asking questions, working with others to find the answers, doing real work for real audiences, and adding to, not simply taking from, the storehouse of knowledge that the Web is becoming. It’s about developing the kinds of habits and dispositions that deep, lifelong learners need to succeed in a world rife with information and connections.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Access doesn’t automatically come with an ability to use the Web well. We aren’t suddenly self-directed, organized, and literate enough to make sense of all the people and information online — or savvy enough to connect and build relationships with others in safe, ethical, and effective ways. Access doesn’t grant the ability to stay on task when we need to get something done. No matter how often we dub our kids “digital natives,” the fact is they can still use our help to do those things and more if they are to thrive in the abundance of their times. Right”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“The biggest challenge, Yong Zhao states, “is our mindset about what makes good education and the seductive power of the traditional paradigm.” At the end of the day, as much as we may claim to value those other, more immeasurable things, we end up looking to old tests and scores to tell us how well our kids are doing.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“invited parents into a book study of Tony Wagner’s The Global Achievement Gap.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Before we can have a coherent conversation around what happens to schools, we need to get educated. We need to learn about modern, connected learning. And we’ve got to try to get others to do that work with us.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“at least half of the time they spend on schoolwork must be on stuff that can’t end up in the Friday Folder? That the reason they’re doing their schoolwork isn’t just for a grade or for it to be pinned up in the hallway? It should be because their work is something they create on their own, or with others, that has real value in the real world.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“there’s no question that a major moment of unlearning and relearning is at hand for educators of all stripes.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“The adults in the room have to be skilled and literate by those 21st-century standards the NCTE is touting. And they have to exhibit the dispositions that will sustain their learning: persistence, empathy, passion, sharing, collaboration, creativity, and curiosity.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Don’t teach my child science; instead, teach my child how to learn science — or history or math or music.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Let me tweak that just a bit: “In times of great abundance, learners will inherit the earth....” Imagine”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Eric Hoffer sums up where our emphasis should be in schools right now: “In times of great change, learners will inherit the earth, while the learned will be beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.” Let”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“We have to stop delivering the curriculum to kids. We have to start discovering it with them.” I”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“We can raise the teaching profession by sharing what works, by taking the best of what we do and hanging it on the virtual wall.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Performance-based assessments, where students actually have to do something with what they know, tell us volumes more about their readiness for life than bubble sheets or contrived essays. No”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“By forcing schools and teachers to teach to the test, it has narrowed the educational experiences of millions of children and thus deprived our children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, of a real education.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“How can we begin to move schools to become places of more relevant, connected, creative learning? Even with a plan, it won’t be easy.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Dewey espoused, school is “real life,” not simply a place to take courses, earn grades, amass credits, and compete against others for recognition. There”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“that the new opportunities for learning require us to articulate a fundamental revision of the value of school and the roles of teachers and classrooms. The”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“If it’s just about tests to graduate, grades to get into college, and scores for international comparisons — which, in large part, it is right now — school is about to be disrupted big time. I”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“can. If it’s just about tests to graduate, grades to get into college, and scores for international comparisons — which, in large part, it is right now — school is about to be disrupted big time. I”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Access doesn’t automatically come with an ability to use the Web well.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“the longer we wait to start a conversation around doing school “differently,” instead of simply “better,” the more we’re putting our kids at risk.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“#whyschoolbook.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“I’d go so far as to say that I want my own kids to be found by strangers on the Internet. (I’ll let that hang there for a moment.) Certainly, I want them to be found by the right strangers, the ones who share their passions and want to learn with them. And I want them to be able to discern between good and bad strangers.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“Students are encouraged to connect with others, and to collaborate and create with them on a global scale. It’s not “do your own work,” so much as “do work with others, and make it work that matters.” To paraphrase Tony Wagner, assessments focus less on what students know, and more on what they can do with what they know.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere

“The world doesn’t care what you know. What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know.”
― Will Richardson, Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere