| Volume 60, September '08 |  |
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1. What is Project Tomorrow Project Tomorrow’s mission is to ensure that today’s youth are well equipped with the critical thinking, problem solving and creativity skills they need to become tomorrow’s leaders, innovators and engaged citizens of the world. Today’s youth need a different set of skills to compete and thrive in this new flat world where global interdependencies and knowledge bases are constantly evolving and changing. Most education institutions are not keeping pace with these dynamics and are not yet adequately preparing the students for the demands of the 21st century workforce and society. We believe that a critical component of a new truly 21st century education must be the inclusion of the ideas and views of today’s student in shaping their own education destiny. We are proud that through our programs, most notably the Speak Up Project, the voices of today’s students are being heard from the halls of Congress to the school board meetings in towns big and small all across the United States. As a result, we are seeing a new energy and excitement around grass roots efforts to improve education and provide learning opportunities that are in sync with the demands of the global economy and are more reflective of the needs of today’s learners as they prepare to be tomorrow’s world leaders. Through an annual online survey event held each fall, over 1.1 million students from kindergarten through 12th grade have participated in our Speak Up Project since 2003. Speak Up is now the largest collection of authentic, unfiltered, “no-spin zone” views on education and technology directly from the kids themselves. The Speak Up Project now also includes surveys for teachers, parents and education administrators as well as focus groups with key audiences. The data findings are shared widely through reports, presentations and events with education, business and policy leaders to inform federal, state and local programs and funding for education. Most importantly, the Speak Up Project has created a new platform for the infusion of student voices and ideas into national and regional discussions on 21st century education, the role of technology in learning, and how to change today’s schools to meet the needs of tomorrow’s learners. We consider it a sacred trust that Project Tomorrow is the conduit for the voices of today’s youth in education. We honor that trust by remembering every day the voice of a student who explained to us the importance of Speak Up in this way: “This is our future; we have a right to have a say in it.” 2. What inspired you to get involved? Pure and simple: kids themselves, starting with my own children. As my own children started school, I soon realized that there was a disconnect between how today’s kids were interacting with the world around them using all kinds of technology and exploring the boundaries of knowledge from all kinds of new sources and the way that the traditional school environment was approaching learning. Upon further investigation and research, I learned that my children’s school was not unique – and in fact, even in our most challenged communities, this digital learning disconnect existed. At that same time Project Tomorrow (then called NetDay) was running a national AmeriCorps program placing college kids into classrooms in underserved areas as technology mentors for the students and teachers. Our AmeriCorps members also told us about this disconnect – and how the students in their classrooms were increasingly frustrated with their learning opportunities. This frustration was leading to an escalating disengagement in the institution we know as “school” and in many cases this disengagement was the impetus for dropping out. Even in our poorest communities, students were “powering down” once they entered the schoolhouse doors. Despite huge investments in creating multimedia labs at schools, the students’ abilities to use that technology while at school was hampered by rules, regulations, limitations and teachers’ lack of skills. At the urging of our AmeriCorps members, we conducted a series of focus groups in our program communities – the Mississippi Delta, the Rio Grande Valley, Detroit, Oakland (CA) and Santa Ana (CA) – to get the first hand view from the students. Our goal was to see if this “digital disconnect” was real for all students especially those from challenged communities that were usually presumed to be on the wrong side of the digital divide. The response was like opening a flood gate. In every community we visited, the students had the same mantra – having access to rich technology resources is important for our future and yet, no one is listening to us on this topic. The Speak Up Project was our response – a way for students of all ages and all backgrounds, from rich and poor communities to have a voice in their own educational destiny, to have a conduit for sharing their ideas with the adults who make policy and decide on funding for education, and learn from each other’s efforts. I will never forget the student from Virginia who asked me, “what took you so long to come and ask our opinion.” The inspiration for this work in 2003 was the kids – it is still the kids today. 3. Describe your typical day. I actually have two typical days – an in the office day and an out of the office day. During my “in the office days” I am a master networker and data aggregator. As CEO of Project Tomorrow, I have a wide range of responsibilities that are management oriented and yet it seems increasingly that the best use of my time is spent in partnership development – whether it is with financial partners, education partners or with other organizations that help us with the promotion of our programs or dissemination of our data findings from Speak Up. Partnerships for us are always about win-win and so I spend a lot of time learning about and understanding the issues that are important to our partners so that we can provide meaningful value to them through our relationship. I also spend a lot of time when I am in the office researching, aggregating and synthesizing data so that we can keep up to date on youth and education trends as well as understanding the context for our programs. Both of these tasks – networking and data aggregation are truly 21st century skills that transcend job titles or responsibilities – they are building blocks for almost any profession or job today. I also spend a lot of time “out of the office” presenting our Speak Up data and other program findings at conferences, briefings and other events and consulting with business, education and policy leaders about how to improve education for today’s students. With these events and meetings, I exercise my context skills – putting the Speak Up data in the context of the audience’s needs so that they can walk away with a new perspective to inform their own work. I always use some portion of those trips to meet with students wherever I may be to hear first hand from them about their frustrations as well as success within school, and their ideas for creating that ultimate school of the future. 4. What's the best part about your job? The absolute best part of my job is having the unique opportunity to listen and learn from kids all across the United States about their visions of the future. Whether the listening and learning is through a webinar, an online chat, IM or through a face to face focus group or panel discussion, I continue to be thoroughly captivated and inspired by the creativity, intelligence and passion of today’s youth in all ages. From a second grader’s pure, unfettered joy in telling me about the lifecycle of a butterfly to the determined zeal of a high school junior who wants to know how he can get his teacher to use more online primary resources in his history class, today’s youth are, despite what we may hear in popular media, thoroughly engaged in the process of exploring their world – and developing new ways to make it better for themselves, their peers all around the world. Too often I hear educators talk about the dis-engagement of today’s youth in learning and I will counter that every time with this: Today’s kids are engaged when we present learning within the context of real world issues and we demonstrate the power of community connections to create new solutions. My personal mission is to bring enlightenment to educators and parents by helping them open their ears to really listening to the ideas of today’s kids – and then they will see what I already know; our future is in very good hands. 5. How can people get involved? The greatest recognition for us is when educators and parents tell us that because of the Speak Up data, they have changed their perspective on today’s youth and/or changed their approach to teaching and supporting the learning practice. Our greatest challenges today are increasing familiarity with Speak Up amongst educators and popular media, increasing survey participation each year and having new avenues for disseminating the data findings. We are always seeking new partnerships and support for Speak Up. So, people that believe in our mission and want to get more involved with Project Tomorrow can visit our website (www.tomorrow.org) to get into Speak Up and our data findings, to learn how they can encourage their local schools to participate and their local legislators to pay attention to the data, and how they can support our programs. And of course we have a Facebook page and a Speak Up blog for people to share their ideas with us also. We believe very strongly in the value and power of more voices in these very important national discussions on 21st century education – the voices of students but also the voices of teachers, parents, business leaders, community activists etc. |
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