We know a few things about what makes innovation and entrepreneurship successful. One important facet is to “get out of the box”. Bringing in novel ideas, especially those that question rather than concede, create opportunities for getting creative juices flowing. This often involves bringing together minds from often disparate places. Crossing disciplines and careers. Non-intentional networking needs to occur.

The convergence of technologies may create new structures to make this happen, and Twine could be one of the leaders. What we need is a way for ideas and interest to become digitized, then linked, and opportunities for discourse to be embedded in the structures. Then for the owners of the ideas to see the links, the other owners, and have the ability to continue the discourse.

It’s a complicated process, something that humans can accomplish on a small scale. But for it to work across organizations and wide physical boundaries, involving greater numbers of people and ideas, we really need machines.

I’d like to see how Twine evolves. In fact, I’d like to see what happens when you add it to a school that embraces cross-discipline project-based learning. Students could be given the opportunity to share their projects and interests, and allow Twine to facilitate the connections to students with similar interests.

Facebook has the potential to network, but it is intentional. Twine could facilitate non-intentional networking.

A popular catch phrase in higher education, Service Learning resonates well with Mr. Stengel’s ideas for a national service plan. I first heard of Service Learning through initiatives begun at our own K20 Center*. A web search shortly thereafter on the topic lead me to this excellent paper, Filling in the Moat around the Ivory Tower, by Vachel W. Miller and David K. Scott (Scott was a previous Vice Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Amherst). The authors write about the creation of an integrative university and the necessity for creation of social capitol. They make two fundamental points about social capital and Service Learning. First, the authors bring the power of service learning in creating a sense of community:

Social capital refers to the level of reciprocity and voluntary associations between individuals in a community…Social capital accrues as a result of engagement, and service learning increases the potential of relationships to form between students and the larger world.

The “larger world” could have referred simply to anything beyond the campus, but the impact of a global market is most often felt in those communities needing the most help. The second point is that Service Learning should come as part of one’s education:

It would be naïve to imagine that students, after years of schooling that disconnects them from community life, would leap into community service after graduation. In order for a service-orientation to become an enduring dimension of learning outcomes in college, we must model community engagement, value community engagement, and provide structured opportunities for community engagement.

Schooling is where is must begin. In creating citizens or education system has the best opportunity to mold a form of community service. Mr. Stengel in the Time magazine article provides one example (#5. Institute a Summer of Service) of middle school graduates beginning community service. I say it can start earlier. I see no reason to involve elementary students in service activities, whether they are providing service to their school community, or neighborhoods. Service Learning should be a part of the spectrum of education. In the same issue, Carolyn Kennedy writes:

In fact, an early investment in service can pay off over a lifetime. The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, a trove of high school-related trend data, found that 42% of young people who volunteered in high school did so again eight years later. And a recent study in the American Educational Research Journal identifies community service during high school as a strong predictor of voting and volunteering in adulthood.

Mr. Stengel’s fourth point, Create an Education Corps, should be embedded into learning from the second grade, at all schools. Students should expect to see teacher volunteers at every grade level, as well as students volunteering to be mentors and tutors for younger grades. I am amazed to see how much my six year old daughter looks up to the kids from second through fifth grade. I would be even more amazed to see the older kids in her classroom helping out. This is leadership development, democratic education, and where participatory culture should be.

The ninth point in the Time article, Start a National Service Academy, is another wonderful idea. The creation of a service academy that would rival West Point in the caliber of its students, yet provide the next generation of leaders solving community problems would be a first for our nation, a concept already in practice in other countries.

It’s time we create the structures in our education system that will lay the foundation for a future national service generation.

*The K20 Center does have a program to foster community leadership, the interdisciplinary Master of Arts degree with an emphasis in Educational and Community Renewal. It is a wonderful program that brings a full breadth of what makes a community and how to discover and tackle its needs. The program includes a required service learning project. The center is also working on service learning initiatives with OU’s College of Enginnering, and is planning initiatives with other colleges. Alas, we do not have a formalized program for K-12.

In the short-sighted effort to bring low achievers up to par with other students, it has made it possible for our best students to spiral into low achievement. This is not democratic education. These are the children that have the most potential to be out next leaders. It is that leadership role that we should cultivate in these students.

Admittedly, that takes pretty special grooming. And that’s not to say that our leaders only come from the brightest, but we tend to like it that way and statistically, it happens. The article’s author, John Cloud, likes the unique schools and grade skipping to help the highest achievers. And as a short term solution to get our education system fixed, I would agree. But we can do better.

As we look down the road to education reform, or just look into exemplary schools like the MET School in Providence, project-based learning dominates. Students work on individual projects and collaboration exists to provide peer support. That creates an environment for leadership development. The MET works. Individual project-based learning works.

At the MET, kids enter at all levels. It’s not just a school of high achieving students. In fact, it’s important that there be a mix. Leadership development doesn’t come from throwing a bunch of bright kids together and expecting them all to come out leaders. There must be the opportunity, naturally, to lead.

High achieving students showing by example and providing elaborate descriptive support to middle achievers. Middle achievers doing the same for low achievers. It needs to trickle down a step at a time. This is described in Noreen Webb’s paper (1991)* on collaborative groups in mathematics. She summarizes what happens to learning when you mix kids into groups:

1. High achievers + Middle achievers + Low achievers = Less effective. (High achievers end up helping low achievers with too simple explanations and middle achievers are left out. High achievers don’t get to excel at elaborate explanations which strengthen their own learning.)
2. High achievers + High achievers = Less effective. (High achievers don’t talk since they assume they all know the answers.)
3. Low achievers + Low achievers = Less effective. (They can’t adequately provide explanations to each other.)
4. Middle achievers + Middle Achievers = Effective.
5. High achievers + Middle Achievers = Very Effective. (High achievers can use elaborate explanations to provide support, strengthening their own learning.)
6. Middle achievers + Low Achievers = Very Effective. (Middle achievers explain to low achievers strengthening their own learning.)

Instead of isolation or grade skipping (individual project-based learning is grade neutral), let’s allow them to do their own projects and give them opportunities to foster their leadership development.

*Task-Related Verbal Interaction and Mathematics Learning in Small Groups, Noreen M. Webb, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Vol. 22, No. 5 (Nov., 1991), pp. 366-389