Blogush

I was reading an article today in the New York Times about Google taking on Microsoft. We’ve talked about how it is hard to prepare you now for an job ten years from now. There were a few paragraphs in the article that really made me think about the importance of learning 21st Century skills versus content, and how it might be hard to prepare you for a job six months from now.

Another draw is Google’s embrace of experimentation and open-ended job assignments. Recent college graduates are routinely offered jobs at Google without being told what they will be doing. The company does this partly to keep corporate secrets locked up, but often it also doesn’t know what new hires will be doing.

Christophe Bisciglia, a 27-year-old engineer, qualifies as a seasoned veteran at Google, having worked there for four years. Mr. Bisciglia has done a lot of college recruiting in the last two years and has interviewed more than 100 candidates.

“We look for smart generalists, who we can be confident can fulfill any need we have,” he explains. “We hire someone, and who knows what need we’ll have when that person shows up six months later? We move so fast.”

For all you kids who want to work out of textbooks because it will be “easier,” do you really think Mr. Bisciglia would want to hire kids because they can read a chapter and answer the questions at the end? He used Google’s 10% program to develop a class for college students to prepare them for jobs that are changing faster than college curriculum’s. The 10% program allows Google employees to use 10% of their time working on a project of their choice.

His idea was launched last month as Google’s new pilot project at the University of Washington. The class is aimed at creating programming prodigies and revamping the way colleges teach computer science.

“When I interview college students, they have a grasp of computing, but it’s fundamentally different,” Bisciglia said. The youngest of Google’s employees need months of training, he said, because what they’ve learned in school is outdated. The hope is that the class will mitigate that problem.

Remember the video I should you that said what you will learn your Freshman year will be out of date by your senior year? In some fields it seems what you learn in your senior year will be outdated.

Outside of parents, who has influenced your life more than anyone else; who had an impact on your life and what was it about that person that meant something to you?

I noticed that many kids started this week’s blog post stating how hard it was to pick one person. It wasn’t for me. I would have had the same answer for the last sixteen years. The person who has had the the greatest impact on my life is Professor George Branigan. I had him in a course called Schooling at Stonehill College. It was, and I know this will sound silly, the first time I actually thought deeply about anything. I had become pretty good at “playing school.” I did the minimum amount of work to get decent grades. In his class I did not have to play school. It actually interested me. All I did every day was to try to figure out why he was wrong — to out think him. He was the first teacher I ever had that actually seemed to think about things and wanted his students to do the same. He never gave any assignments due the next class yet I found myself reading more for his class than any other. Each class seemed to have absolutely no plan, no agenda. Yet somehow by the end I found myself taken on an intellectual journey. I was learning and became totally engaged. I can remember many kids in class being upset because he wasn’t “telling” us what to do. At the end of the semester, he gave us an assignment that truly changed my life. His final exam was “hand one in.” “Hand one in!” Ahhh! I was actually going to be responsible for my own learning. It is the event in my life that defines who I am as a teacher. I have also tried to reproduce his class in my room. A class in which learning takes place in a very individual way, according to one’s own needs and desires. Sometimes I try to find another reason for who I am, but ultimately I always come back to that class. To this day my teaching is influenced by Professor George. As I enter a time in my career in which I am going “2.0” crazy, it is still his influence that makes me think about what I am doing and drives me to constantly improve the learning environment in my classroom. I can guarantee that he would not remember me. I did not transform myself in that one semester. It was slow and took many years. I am far from finished.

So what did I do for that final exam? I took a series of comic strips that he always talked about (Zippy) and interpreted them. I wrote the paper to the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song.

I wonder what kind of change my students will be responsible for creating in the future. As I get older, and teach longer, I find myself thinking about this more and more and find that it is driving me to change the way I teach. What will they do? World leaders, technological innovators, neighborhood activists, loving parents. I strive to have each kid graduate from my class with at least the knowledge that they can change the world, they are not just a member of the audience, they are the writers and directors.

The following is inscribed on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abby (1100 A.D.) …

When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

But it, too, seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

And now, as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world.

Some might say that we do too many assignments that require self-reflection. But as the above quote states, we must all be able to change ourselves first, before we start dreaming to change the world we live in. Once we start looking inside ourselves, we also start to study history differently. No longer is Harriet Tubman just a hero for freeing slaves, but we start to think about why she was a great person and then start to internalize some of her characteristics that made her a hero. We take one step closer to being like her, one step closer to changing the world.

I just hope that they don’t wait until the “future” to start creating change.

It is also important to remember that while past-present-& future are all somehow interconnected, the only place from which to change the future is in the NOW. The power for change resides in the present moment, for that is the only place from which our thoughts or actions can actually be changed.

I can’t wait to find out what they will do, and how they will do it.