Life beyond the classroom is considerably different for students. In his book, Wagner looks at the highly creative youthful people in a bid to understand the key influences that enable people to become innovative. The book provides interesting teaching and parenting approaches associated with developing youthful innovators in the wake of the great recession of 2008.
Wagner advocates for a curriculum that is focused on instilling progressive skills to students in order to prepare them to cope better with life challenges. He considers the existing learning curriculum as the main cause of diminishing innovative skills among young minds. Wagner does not dwell on the lack of innovation but seeks to consider various approaches towards dealing with the challenge. As such, Wagner considers the possible remedies in view of the impressive youthful persons who are in gainful employment regarding their testimonials. The development of an innovation-driven economy is what Wagner advocates. He explores ways in which employers, parents, and teachers must do in order to improve the abilities of the youthful persons to make them more innovative.
In chapter one, ‘A Primer of Innovation’, Wagner considers why innovation is important for the future of the United States. He considers the big challenge to the U. S. innovations to be the increasing number of countries offering good and well-paying blue-collar and white-collar jobs, with considerably low-cost work force. According to Wagner, innovation must be based on the opportunity to practice creativity at home, school, and in the workplace.
Chapter two looks at the upbringing aspect of would-be innovators from the parenting, teaching, motivating, and creating an innovation culture. Regarding child-rearing, parents consider playing to be an important aspect of childhood. They also allow more time for unstructured innovation and fewer time on structured lessons. Parents also practice a trial and error parenting by letting a child to lead. Teaching an innovator entails allowing flexibility and opportunities to fail, programs that are flexible and allow children to experiment, and opportunities to solve actual problems and show their mastery. Consequently, motivation entails allowing learners to be risk-takers in order to develop self-confidence. Further, a culture of innovation according to Wagner is created by inspiring creative-thinking skills and understanding that intrinsic motivation is better than technical knowledge.
In chapter three, Wagner considers the young persons who are employed in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields or what may be referred to as the civic-minded entrepreneurships. It is noteworthy that learning curriculum is not the only essential towards creative young innovators; motivational child-rearing is just as important. In this chapter, Wagner emphasizes on the importance of allowing children the opportunity to toy with ideas, to cultivate passion based on their interests, and developing a sense of purpose (Wagner, 2012).
References
Wagner, T. (2012). Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the
World. New York: Scribner.
