I have always felt very strongly that if a person
understands why they are doing something they will get it done. This assumes
that they want to get it done, but for the most part, people want to do
something rather than sit around like a lump on a log. My young people
challenge this belief all the time as they are teens, but I hold to it! I think
it is this belief that helps to drive my passion for learning in context for a
purpose and that the purpose being meaningful. The focus on being able to learn
is always up front.
I was reading a report posted on CNN.com from yesterday,
4/1/14, called “Report: 15-year-olds in Asia are better problem solvers than in
the U.S.” that I found on my Facebook timeline. The title made me get that “are
you sure that’s what the report said” look on my face.
This title could be interpreted a lot of ways depending on
your perspective of our youth, but the truth is most likely that “better” isn’t
by a whole bunch and is completely relative. For example, my indoor-soccer game
was won my team last week 12-2. If I looked at the 10 points between our scores
I might be able to convince some people that we are performing better than the
other team that their team should either quit or use our coach, etc. If we
looked at our teams’ statistics and the crazy rare shot or two we made that
night the idea of us being “better” might not mean as much. The thing is, both
teams could play soccer and we came out on top this game. One data point is
never the whole story it should never be. The U.S. ranked 15th out
of 44 in this problem solving test by the way and were above average in all the
performance areas.
Now back to the report and my reason for mentioning it. As I
read it through, it emphasized that leading economies NEED people who can problem
solve in known and unknown contexts – that there is a link between great
problem solvers and strong economies. The test was designed using real
situations adults face at work. This is awesome for ACE learners because we ask
them to do this all the time! This is awesome for our industry partners because
this is what they are asking for us to teach the students!
--Tori Stephens-Shauger
