nerd teacher [books] reviewed Creating Innovators by Tony Wagner
Way too focused on being successful and innovative in the ways capitalists want.
1 star
Needs more discussion about how to deal with failure and less written about people who seem automatically successful in their lives. A lot of the phrasing is also annoying: I don't like that people who are social justice-minded keep getting categorised as being "idealistic," when the fact is that we know the world can be better and that people just aren't willing to put forward that work (because it's not seen as useful or it's not economically viable).
Which leads me to another problem: The book focuses a lot on being economically viable and economically competitive, which is a problem. For being a book about innovation, it doesn't seem to encourage innovating ideologies; it doesn't seem to realise that capitalism isn't the only system available, which is actually a system that doesn't necessarily encourage creativity (or innovation).
As an educator, much of what's been written here isn't new, either. This …
Needs more discussion about how to deal with failure and less written about people who seem automatically successful in their lives. A lot of the phrasing is also annoying: I don't like that people who are social justice-minded keep getting categorised as being "idealistic," when the fact is that we know the world can be better and that people just aren't willing to put forward that work (because it's not seen as useful or it's not economically viable).
Which leads me to another problem: The book focuses a lot on being economically viable and economically competitive, which is a problem. For being a book about innovation, it doesn't seem to encourage innovating ideologies; it doesn't seem to realise that capitalism isn't the only system available, which is actually a system that doesn't necessarily encourage creativity (or innovation).
As an educator, much of what's been written here isn't new, either. This is all stuff I've been saying ever since I was a student; more activity-based classes, more practical skills, more research skills, more critical thinking, more everything that isn't rote memorisation, and definitely more community engagement. We don't even encourage these things in our systems.
Also, less focus on Ivy Leagues, honestly. We need to start pointing out that there are a lot of good, smart, amazing, talented people who don't go that route (because those schools are massively prohibitive, particularly as there are so few). This is an issue we have because we place too much value in these schools. There are so many 'innovators' coming out of Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Stanford (at least as the book makes it seem). What about people who attend schools like SIUE, SIUC, NKU, and so on? There are wonderful professors at these places, there can be great programs in these places. But what makes their students 'less good' than those coming out of Ivy Leagues? I'd like to see that functionally answered.
