“We must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.” – Pablo Picasso

For the four years since it’s founding, the Vallejo Charter School (VCS) has been on the forefront of innovation in education. By utilizing a cutting edge Experiential Learning model, VCS serves as a platform for innovation in the education sector.

Collective Invention partnered with VCS to assess the effectiveness of this model and to help the school understand its place within broader trends transforming education over the next decade. The resulting report is available to download here:

A School Worthy of Its Children

Highlights include:

• Many of the jobs that VCS students will hold in the year 2025 do not currently exist. They may range from Aquaprenuers who finding opportunities in technology addressing the state’s water crisis to Clinical Bioninformaticists who tailor drugs to fit patients’ genetic codes.
• 66% of education philanthropies are funding innovation in education, and 33% plan to increase funding in this area. By positioning itself as a center for prototyping and scaling new learning models, VCS can more effectively capture philanthropic investment.
• Ethnographic documentation of VCS’s model revealed a striking emphasis on attentiveness. “In classrooms around the campus we noticed an emphasis on the physical characteristics of listening: eye contact, empty hands and a still body. “Use your listening eyes,” we heard in one classroom. “Make sure your hands are hands are empty and your feet are still. No distractions while you are listening” we heard in another. Research by the Dana Consortium indicates that attentiveness is significantly correllated with improved scores on intelligence tests.

We uncovered some fascinating insights curating our track at the Social Capital Markets Conference, Polycentric Solutions: Local in the World. We’re still buzzing here at CI with the interesting conversations and great people we met and worked with. On-the-ground leaders from Oakland to Sweden to Kenya came together to cross-pollinate best practices about local solutions to global problems. Facts and highlights from the track include: (more…)

In order to prepare students for a rich and turbulent future, we need to empower them with the tools of design. That’s why Collective Invention cofounder Arnold Wasserman has been working with the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) to create an event which provides high school students with hands-on experience using design principles.

The day’s learning experience will kick-off a series of phased projects in which students will take an active role in the design and expansion of their teaching and learning spaces over the course of the next few years.

In addition, the students will continue to hone their design skills and understandings to then contribute to the planning and design of the future Homer Plessy Museum.

Learn more about this event here.