I

really enjoyed reading this book and found that it offered many opportunities for me

to sit back and reflect on our education system and the things we are prioritizing. Our society

today is facing many challenging problems and will continue to face challenging problems that

require creative and innovative solutions. Are our schools producing individuals who are able to

be creative, innovative and collaborative? To me, the answer is sometimes. Unfortunately,

innovation doesnt fit in well with the call and response and rote memorization that often

characterizes our education system. There are standardized tests that students are taught to

pass which leave little time for discovery and innovation. This book made me think more about

what I can do as a teacher to help foster innovative thinking in my students and to encourage

them to be curious and engage in discovery and play based learning.

One of the sections that I loved was the section where they talked about the creation of

the iPhone. It was such an interesting read as Kirk talked about all the different elements that

needed to come together in order to create that revolutionary product. During this section, I

found his remarks about why Apple is successful to be very interesting. He credits Apple as

being successful because they have an engineering and design process thats all about creating

conflict (Wagner, 2012, p. 44). This was so fascinating to me that he credited their success to

their ability to create conflict and then to successfully problem solve. He saw conflict as an

opportunity to experiment and create and work around the problem. I think thats so

interesting because in my experience, students often stop or become less motivated in the

classroom when they run into a conflict. I think this highlights the importance of teaching our

students to use conflicts or difficulties as an opportunity to brainstorm solutions and as a time

to think outside the box. They created the iPhone because they thought about things in a
different way than anyone else had before and they ran into conflict that caused them to

problem solve even more creative and innovative solutions.

One thing that I found so disheartening in this book, was how many extremely talented

and creative innovators could not list teachers who had supported them and helped them. This

is something that all educators need to think about and reflect upon. I think our school systems

can get bogged down too much sometimes by all the standardized tests, the standards, the

assessments, etc. Teachers also need to make sure that they are looking at the needs of all their

students. Its also important for teachers to consider what interests their students have. If

students are heavily interested in football, maybe some of the math word problems can relate

to football. Learning becomes more engaging and tangible when students start to apply it to

their lives. And when you look at student interests, for example football, there is practical math

in football as teams look at statistics, and budgets. In football, there is also writing in

advertising and promotions and company documents. There is art in logo design, advertisement

design, merchandise. There is science when you look at the pressure of the ball and the

temperature outside. A students interest can be used to explore important skills but applied to

real life problems and issues.

While I was reading the text, there were certain statements that stood out to me. One

of them was: In most conventional education settings, learning is overwhelmingly passive

(Wagner, 2012, p. 174). This builds upon my earlier thoughts, and highlights the type of

education our students are being provided. Our students are being asked to be passive

learners. We are asking them to sit in desks and listens to their teachers lecture. We are asking

them to read texts and regurgitate information back. During my experience as a student, I
often found this type of learning boring and difficult to remain engaged in. Equally, as a

teacher, I find this type of teaching to be boring. I enjoy having students in my classrooms

create and experiment. There is more meaning when students come to a conclusion by

themselves and more value when they are able to share their findings and teach their

classmates. I see teachers more as the facilitators of learning. We are there to provide

opportunities for students to engage in active learning and to help them ask the right

questions, and find the information they need. We are there to support their discovery and

encourage them to pursue their passions.

The other comment that I found really striking was: You have to help your children see

failure as part of the process (Wagner, 2012, p. 225). As a child, I was someone who

absolutely hated failure, and as an adult today sometimes still struggle to accept failure as part

of the process. Its important for our young children to understand that failing is okay and

there is something to be learned from failing. When I read this line, I thought of one of my

favorite childrens books, Rosie Revere Engineer. I bought this book for my goddaughter a few

years ago because I found the message so important. The book follows a young engineer who

makes all these different inventions but they dont work properly. She becomes so sad when

her helicopter doesnt work write and says she will stop inventing. Her aunt then tells her, Life

might have its failures, but this was not it. The only time failure can come is if you quit (Beaty).

Its an important message for children to understand. You create something and if it doesnt

work as intended the first time then you go back and you learn from your mistakes to make it

better. I have a friend who is teaching the Engineering and Design Process and part of the
process is to test your ideas and then to make adjustments. Students need to learn this and this

is a lesson that can be applied to almost all experiences.

This book really made me stop and think about the way we are teaching students and

the opportunity we have as educators to influence the future by helping create future

innovators. One story that stuck out to me was where Annemarie Neal spoke about her six-

year-old sons experience at a charter school after placement tests. The young boy was trying to

tell the teacher a story and explore concepts through conversation when she kept cutting him

off and asking him to lower his voice even though he wasnt yelling. The little boy later

recounted that, I did great on the test, but I did not feel so good after (Wagner, 2012, p. 219).

To me, teachers are there to listen to our students and show them we are interested in their

original thoughts and that it is positive to share them. Its important to create a classroom

environment where students feel safe to take academic risks and to be wrong and to fail and to

feel like their voices are heard. That story really stuck with me about how important it is to

value the thoughts of our students and to show them they have value by really listening to what

they are saying.

Overall, this was a great read that really made me think about things in a new way. From

considering the way STEM innovators were able to be inspired to create new products to

looking at the way social innovators looked to create social change in their communities from

young ages. Innovation, play based learning, and discovery based education should be our

future in order to create more well rounded students who are able to engage in collaborative

problem solving. Collaborative problem solving is what they will face in the real world when

they enter it, so we should be preparing them for that.