journal article

Praise for Reach for Greatness

Yong Zhao again provokes and challenges our thinking by sounding a

call to immediate action. Our education system must fundamentally

change to meet the needs of our children. With insightful personal stories

and penetrating analysis of our current education system, Zhao, at once

challenging, provocative, and optimistic, shows us that personalizable

education models are the way to transform our education system from

one that supports mediocrity to one which magnifies the passions and

talents of each student.

—Rod Allen Superintendent, Cowichan Valley School District

Former Assistant Deputy Minister of Education

British Columbia, Canada

A bold and compelling call for a wholesale shift in our education priorities.

With powerful stories and examples, Dr. Zhao lays out an aspirational

goal for our schools: empower each child to create a distinctive path to

greatness by reinforcing strengths and unleashing passions. Read this,

and you’ll be inspired!

—Ted Dintersmith Author of What School Could Be

Executive Producer of the Documentary Most Likely to Succeed

Reach for Greatness is a must-read for the truly professional educator

today. Common sense and expert practice are hard to find. Yong Zhao

brings insight and intelligence in arguing for a dramatic shift of thinking

about schooling that is fit for today’s world. This book helps give shape

to a robust narrative sorely needed for every student.

—Greg Whitby Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta, Australia

Author of Educating Gen Wi-Fi

Are you keen for the real depth and substance of an education that helps

all students to reach their full potential but tired of empty promises for

“personalized learning”? If so, Yong Zhao’s Reach for Greatness is the

book for you! With vivid examples and carefully scaffolded argumentation,

Zhao shows how what he calls “personalizable education” offers an

exciting and practical future for all of our students truly to become great.

Zhao’s writing is so full of whimsy and humor that you can’t wait to

see what this wonderful alchemist of educational change is going to say

next. Best of all, this gem of a book is one that not only all teachers, but

also a rising generation of students, will cherish.

—Dennis Shirley Professor, Lynch School of Education, Boston College

Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Educational Change

Reading a book by Yong Zhao is always an educational awakening! In

Reach for Greatness, Zhao makes it clear that students are the potential

for greatness within schools, not a problem our educational system needs

to fix. This book challenges educators to re-examine the true purpose of

education and commit to supporting students’ passions and cultivating

their strengths. Personalizable education occurs when students are in

the driver’s seat—their voices need to be heard, valued, and acted upon.

Thanks to Zhao, I am more determined than ever to ensure that students

are not just along for the ride.

—Russell J. Quaglia Author of Teacher Voice, Parent Voice,

Student Voice, and Aspire High

Yong Zhao, ever the engaging education contrarian, delivers a compelling

read that systematically outlines how to break away from educational

systems that narrow, dictate, and sort learners, and readjust to focus

on students’ unique skills, needs, and passions. It brings the role of

education—in society and for the individual—to the forefront and, in

doing so, has the reader reappraise its purpose. Moving beyond just a

recommendation of personalization, Zhao promotes the idea of education

personalized by, not for, the learner.

—Sean Slade Senior Director of Global Outreach, ASCD

Yong Zhao pulls us from our narrow view of what education is and

reminds us what it needs to be. Personalized education (as opposed to the

ubiquitous and limited notion of personalized learning) is essential for

recognizing and cultivating the diverse strengths of our students for their

own good and the good of society. Poignant stories from Zhao’s global

travels to schools make the research in this call to action relatable and

accessible for all educational stakeholders. This is an important read!  

—Emily McCarren Academy Principal, Punahou School

Co-Author of The Take Action Guide to

World Class Learners book series

In Reach for Greatness, Yong Zhao makes the urgent case for

empowering every young person to recognize their strengths, realize

their talents, and follow their passions. Furthermore, his idea of

empowerment is centered on the young person taking control of their

own learning—a critical shift from the dominant model in which

education is done to the student. Clear, compelling, evidence-based,

and practical, this is an important book.

—Ross Hall Director of Education, Ashoka

Founder, The Global Change Leaders

Reach for Greatness

Corwin Impact Leadership Series

Series Editor: Peter M. DeWitt

Indelible Leadership: Always Leave Them Learning by Michael Fullan

Reaching the Heart of Leadership: Lessons Learned, Insights Gained,

Actions Taken by Avis Glaze

Principal Voice: Listen, Learn, Lead by Russell J. Quaglia

Reduce Change to Increase Improvement by Viviane Robinson

FinnishED Leadership: Four Big, Inexpensive Ideas to Transform Education

by Pasi Sahlberg

Reach for Greatness: Personalizable Education for All Children by

Yong Zhao

Forthcoming contributions from Andy Hargreaves and Alma Harris

Reach for Greatness

Personalizable Education for All Children

Yong Zhao

FOR INFORMATION:

Corwin

A SAGE Company

2455 Teller Road

Thousand Oaks, California 91320

(800) 233-9936

www.corwin.com

SAGE Publications Ltd.

1 Oliver’s Yard

55 City Road

London EC1Y 1SP

United Kingdom

SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area

Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044

India

SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd.

3 Church Street

#10-04 Samsung Hub

Singapore 049483

Publisher: Arnis Burvikovs

Content Development Editor: Desirée A. Bartlett

Editorial Assistant: Eliza Riegert

Production Editor: Amy Schroller

Copy Editor: Liann Lech

Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.

Proofreader: Christine Dahlin

Indexer: Amy Murphy

Cover Designer: Michael Dubowe

Copyright  2018 by Corwin

All rights reserved. When forms and sample documents are included, their use is authorized only by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit entities that have purchased the book. Except for that usage, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All trademarks depicted within this book, including trademarks appearing as part of a screenshot, figure, or other image, are included solely for the purpose of illustration and are the property of their respective holders. The use of the trademarks in no way indicates any relationship with, or endorsement by, the holders of said trademarks.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-5063-1609-3

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

18 19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DISCLAIMER: This book may direct you to access third-party content via Web links, QR codes, or other scannable technologies, which are provided for your reference by the author(s). Corwin makes no guarantee that such third-party content will be available for your use and encourages you to review the terms and conditions of such third-party content. Corwin takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for your use of any third-party content, nor does Corwin approve, sponsor, endorse, verify, or certify such third-party content.

Contents

Acknowledgments xi

About the Author xiii

Introduction: Stop Looking at My Bad Leg 1

Chapter 1: The Ambitious Pursuit of Mediocrity: How

Education Curtails Children’s Potential for Greatness 11

Chapter 2: All Children Are Above the Average:

The Potential for Greatness 23

Chapter 3: A Musician Must Make Music:

The Need to Be Great 41

Chapter 4: Take Control: Personalizable

Education for Greatness 53

Chapter 5: Trust Me: Realizing Personalizable Education 71

References 83

Index 91

xi

Acknowledgments

I owe many people a debt of gratitude for making this book possi-

ble. First, I want to thank my parents for not insisting on improv-

ing my farming skills when I was growing up. Although farming

seemed the only destiny for me at the time and I was worse than

inadequate at managing the water buffalo, my parents let me run

away from the apparent deficit by allowing me to go to school,

where I found my strengths and confidence. Second, I am grateful

for all the teachers in my life for forgiving my apparent weaknesses

and supporting my exploration of my interests and strengths.

I have been extremely fortunate to have many caring and forgiving

teachers in my life, in particular, Teachers Hu and Tang in elemen-

tary school, Teacher Wang in middle school, Teachers Jiang and

Long in high school and Dr. Gary Cziko in graduate school. These

teachers and my parents made it possible for me to author this

book about strength-based education. In some way, they created a

personalizable education for me.

I am deeply grateful for the courageous and inspiring work of

numerous educators and students. It is through interactions with

them that I developed the ideas in this book. Their work not only

reinforced my belief in the urgent need for personalizable educa-

tion but also convinced me that such an education is possible.

While it is impossible to name all the educators and students who

shaped my thinking, I must acknowledge a few who have contrib-

uted a great deal to this book. Peter Hutton, principal of Templestowe

College in Australia, made it possible for me to observe personaliz-

able education in action. Chris Aviles, EdTech Coach at Fair Haven

schools in New Jersey, and Mark Suter, computer science teacher at

REACH foR GREATNESSxii

Elida High School in Ohio, shared with me their innovative work

and impact on students. I must also thank John Cahalin and his

colleagues at Real World Scholars for their work with teachers and

students to build authentic classroom-based enterprises, from

which I drew much inspiration.

The book also benefited directly from the work I have been doing

through the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University, in particular

the Paradigm Shifters project that put into practice some of the

ideas included in this book. The project was implemented in part-

nership with Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals

and New South Wales Secondary Principals Council. Sara Glover,

Michelle Anderson, Chris Cawsey, Judy Crowe, Wayne Perkins, and

Dianne Hennessy were instrumental in making the project possible.

Likewise, I learned a great deal from the Rudolph project with the

Association of Independent Schools in South Australia under the

leadership of Carolyn Grantskalns and Mary Hudson. The Rudolph

project also put to test some of the ideas discussed in the book. The

principals, teachers, and students participated in these projects

helped me refine many of the ideas that appear in this book.

Finally, I am grateful for the many encouraging and insightful

conversations with my editor, Arnis Burvikovs at Corwin. As

always, Arnis’s gentle reminders and thoughtful feedback made the

final product significantly better.

While the book has benefited from the contribution of many, all

errors are mine.

—Yong Zhao

Lawrence, Kansas

October 3, 2017

xiii

About the Author

Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished

Professor in the  School

of Education at the

University of Kansas. He

is also a professorial fellow

at the Mitchell Institute

for Health and Education

Policy, Victoria University

in Australia, as well as a

Global Chair at the

University of Bath, UK. He

previously  served as the

Presidential Chair and

Director of the Institute

for Global and Online

Education in the College

of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor

in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and

Leadership. Before joining Oregon, Yong Zhao was University

Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan

State University, where he also served as the founding director of

the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the

Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on

Educational Excellence.

Yong Zhao’s works focus on the implications of globalization and

technology on education. He has published over 100 articles and

REACH foR GREATNESSxiv

30 books, including  Counting What Counts: Reframing Education

Outcomes (2016),  Never Send a Human to Do a Machine’s Job:

Correcting Top 5 Ed Tech Mistakes (2015), Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad

Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the

World (2014), Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in

the Age of Globalization (2009) and World Class Learners: Educating

Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (2012).

Yong Zhao has received numerous awards, including the  Early

Career Award from the American Educational Research Association,

Outstanding Public Educator from  Horace Mann League of USA,

and Distinguished Achievement Award in Professional Development

from the Association of Education Publishers. He is an elected fel-

low of the International Academy for Education and is recognized

as one of the most influential education scholars.

INTRoduCTIoN 1

Introduction Stop Looking at My Bad Leg

Benjamin Franklin wrote about a philosopher friend of his who

used his two legs to determine with whom to avoid acquaintances

more than 200 years ago. In “The Deformed and Handsome Leg,”

Franklin says there are two kinds of people: One always finds

beauty and good in things and people and thus is happy and pleas-

ant to be with, while the other always looks for the contrary and

thus is unhappy and unpleasant all the time. Franklin advises that

we should stay away from the latter at all costs. To determine the

kind of people in a stranger, Franklin’s friend noted the stranger’s

reaction to his legs. Franklin’s friend had one “remarkably hand-

some” leg and “the other by some accident crooked and deformed.

If a Stranger at the first Interview, regarded his ugly Leg more than

his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no

Notice of the handsome Leg, that was sufficient to determine my

Philosopher to have no farther Acquaintance with him” (Franklin,

1780).

Unfortunately, most children do not have the same luxury as

Franklin’s philosopher friend to decide whether they want to con-

tinue the acquaintance with such an unpleasant character.

Education today is very much like the stranger who keeps looking

at Franklin’s friend’s ugly leg more than his handsome one. It is

obsessed with what children do not know or are unable to do.

Worse, education today has developed various ways to speak about

children’s deficiency, publicly and loudly, in the forms of tracking,

2 REACH foR GREATNESS

grade retention, and sorting into different programs such as special

education, summer remediation, and extra tutoring. It goes even

beyond talking about children’s presumed deficiencies; education

today works very hard to fix them, ignoring and potentially harm-

ing the handsome leg.

What made education such an unpleasant character is the gap

mindset. The primary mission of education, as believed by many,

is to instill in all children a set of knowledge and skills at a similar

pace. This set of knowledge and skills, usually codified as curricu-

lum standards, is presumed to be necessary for successful living in

a society. To ensure all children are equipped with the prescribed

skills and knowledge at the same pace, education has developed an

elaborate system of assessments and checkpoints. Children are

regularly (and frequently) assessed against the standards so as to

detect and hopefully remedy any gaps.

Of course, gaps exist. Students’ mastery of the knowledge and skills,

measured by standardized tests, varies a great deal. Some students

seem to excel, while others lag behind. But for a variety of reasons,

it has been found that groups of students with certain backgrounds

as a whole seem to lag behind other groups. For example, in the

United States, students from low-income families are less likely

than their wealthier peers to demonstrate that they have achieved

the prescribed standards. Similarly, ethnic minority students, par-

ticularly African American and Hispanic students, score lower than

their Caucasian counterparts on standardized tests.

The gaps have received much attention around the world. Dubbed

achievement gaps, many societies have enacted major policies and

invested massive resources to close them. The United States is a

prime example.

THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP MANIA IN AMERICA

For nearly two decades, since the enactment of the No Child Left

Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,

2002) in 2002, America has been suffering from “achievement gap

INTRoduCTIoN 3

mania” (Hess, 2011). Closing the achievement gap has been the

commanding, almost exclusive, goal of education in America. All

educational efforts, be they in policy, research, or practice, must be

justified on the grounds that they can help close the achievement

gap. As a result, the nation has devoted all its educational resources

to the campaign to narrow the chasm in test scores and graduation

rates between students of different backgrounds, particularly in

income and race.

The campaign has been a futile one. The gap between the poor and

the rich has not narrowed significantly, nor has the chasm between

children of color and their White counterparts (Annie E. Casey

Foundation, 2013; Curran & Kellogg, 2016; Plucker, Hardesty, &

Burroughs, 2013)—in fact, it has widened (Ostashevsky, 2016;

Reardon, 2011). The drastic policies put forth by NCLB, the billions

of dollars, the numerous instructional innovations, and the tireless

efforts of educators did not seem to have turned schools into an

effective mechanism to alter the trajectory preset by children’s

family background before they arrive at school. Today, factors asso-

ciated with a child’s home remain much more powerful predictors

of their future than do schools (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2010;

Bailey & Dynaski, 2011; Curran & Kellogg, 2016; Duncan &

Murnane, 2011; Fryer & Levitt, 2004; Reardon, 2011).

Worse, the campaign has been counterproductive (Hess, 2011).

Beyond the squandered resources and opportunities, “achievement

gap mania” has significantly changed American education for the

worse. It

has led to education policy that has shortchanged many chil-

dren. It has narrowed the scope of schooling. It has hollowed

out public support for school reform. It has stifled educa-

tional innovation. It has distorted the way we approach

educational choice, accountability, and reform. (Hess, 2011)

It has also turned American education into test preparation, result-

ing in massive “collateral damages” (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). It

has demoralized educators and students (Nichols & Berliner, 2008;

Smith & Kovacs, 2011; Wong, Wing, & Martin, 2016), and it has

4 REACH foR GREATNESS

deprived many children, particularly those whom the campaign

was supposed to help, of the opportunities for a real education

(Carter & Welner, 2013; Tienken & Zhao, 2013). Furthermore, it

has reinforced the deficit mindset for minority students and con-

cealed the real cause for educational inequality (Cross, 2007; Jones,

2013; Ladson-Billings, 2007).

Nevertheless, the campaign continues. The well-evidenced failure

and damaging consequences of efforts summoned by NCLB to

narrow the achievement gaps have apparently not caused American

policymakers to change course. Although NCLB was replaced by

the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 (Every Student

Succeeds Act, 2015–2016), closing the achievement gaps remains

the commanding goal of education. Despite the mechanical

changes, the purpose of the new education law “is to provide all

children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and

high-quality education, and to close educational achievement

gaps” (Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015–2016, Section 1001).

Barring any significant changes, achievement gap mania will con-

tinue to reign over American education for the foreseeable future.

RUDOLPH AND ME

Rudolph had a red nose. It is a deficit because the standard nose

color is supposed to be black in reindeer country. So all efforts were

applied to fix his nose color. And, of course, the poor red-nosed

reindeer was not normal and did not meet the standard. The other

reindeers with black noses were the good ones and did not want to

mix with the bad kid. But all the children around the world should

be grateful that no one fixed Rudolph’s red nose because his red

nose was the very thing Santa Claus needed for his sleigh on a

foggy Christmas Eve.

I am grateful that no one tried to fix my deficits either. I am

able to write this book not because I had planned to be a professor

in the United States, but because I was not forced to fix my lack of

ability and interest in becoming a farmer in China. I was born in a

Chinese village and thus destined to become a farmer like everyone

INTRoduCTIoN 5

else in the village. But from a very early age, I discovered that I was

not cut out to be a successful farmer. I was physically smaller and

weaker than other boys. I could not drive water buffalos or climb

trees or manipulate the hoe nearly as well as other boys. I tried to

learn, and my father was a good teacher, but I was unable to master

the farming skills. By any standard, I was way below the average of

all the boys in terms of farming knowledge and abilities. There was

a clear achievement gap in farming capabilities between me and the

other boys in the village.

Luckily, my father did not try too hard to close my achievement

gap. He gave up on me early. Instead of pushing me to become a

better farmer, he sent me to school. In school, I discovered what I

could be good at. My ability to handle reading was much better

than my ability to deal with a water buffalo. After all, I could be

good at something. And I liked that feeling. However, no one,

including my father and myself, knew how I could make a living

without farming at the time, when China was in the midst of a

disastrous political campaign called the Great Cultural Revolution.

The campaign dismantled the formal education system and sent

the educated elite to remote rural areas to be “reeducated” by

farmers. Education was thus not a way to get out of the village for

a better life, like it is today. In other words, it was not the remote

chance that education would bring a better life that motivated me

to go to school. Instead, it was the feeling that I could be good at

something, and the desire to avoid doing something I was not

good at, that sustained my motivation to walk barefoot to school

every day, in burning summers and freezing winters.

I am a big fan of the “growth mindset” (Dweck, 2008). I strongly

believe that anyone can learn anything. But I have tried not to

apply the idea to everything in life. I have avoided applying

a growth mindset in football, for example, although I know if

I indeed put 10,000 hours into it, as Malcolm Gladwell (2008) sug-

gests in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, I could become

better. But I also know very well that even if I put 100,000 hours

into it, I will not be playing for the NFL because my 5’6” height

and 150 lb. weight are way below the average height and weight of

NFL players. No matter how hard I try, I probably won’t get there.

6 REACH foR GREATNESS

I have also avoided applying it in other undertakings. I gave up on

putting 10,000 hours into painting quickly after I discovered that

I could barely draw a straight line and the Chinese characters I

produced always looked like the footprints of a chicken. I gave up

studying math in high school because I did not enjoy math and I

was not good at it. I received 3 points out of 120 in the College

Entrance Exam in 1982.

I was able to go to college without studying math because of a policy

that forgave my poor math performance. In the late 1970s and early

1980s, when Chinese education was recovering from the damages of

the Cultural Revolution, it allowed students to major in foreign

languages without being good at math. Math was not counted

toward the total score of the College Entrance Exam for those apply-

ing to study foreign languages. To run away from my poor math, I

chose to major in English in college. I was lucky because the policy

ended in 1982. Math has since become a required core subject in the

College Entrance Exam, which means Chinese students can no lon-

ger run away from math if they want to go to college.

I have been fortunate to be able to avoid virtually everything that

I have no potential for being good at or I am not interested in.

More important, I have been fortunate to have had the space to

explore my passions and experiment with different undertakings

to discover my weaknesses and strengths. Most people are not born

knowing what they are interested in and can be good at. They can

only find out through experiences.

But experiences have costs and risks. Every experience requires

time, and some require money and extra effort. Thus, adults want

every activity their children experience to be positive, to lead to

some desirable outcome. They don’t want their children to waste

their time, energy, or money, or worse, to have experiences that

may have a negative impact. Responsible adults naturally have a

tendency to prescribe experiences for children. The result is that

many children are allowed to have only experiences deemed to be

beneficial and safe by adults.

I was fortunate to have broader and more diverse experiences than

most children. Although my experiences were severely constrained

INTRoduCTIoN 7

by the lack of resources and remoteness of my village, I enjoyed

more freedom. As soon as I started school, my illiterate parents did

not feel they could guide me anymore and thus allowed me to

pursue whatever I thought appropriate throughout my life. My

teachers in the village school were not well trained to make me

follow a prescribed reading curriculum, so I was able to read any-

thing I could find instead of a series of carefully selected graded

reading materials. The assortment of used books, magazines, and

newspapers my father collected for wrapping noodles in the village

noodle factory not only taught me to read but also, more impor-

tantly, exposed me to a broad range of topics, way beyond what a

very carefully designed curriculum can offer.

Neither my parents nor my teachers attempted to force me to do

things they wanted or forbid me from doing things they did not like.

I was free of external judgment and never feared it. So I got to have

many different experiences, some more beneficial than others, but

all were necessary for me to find my passion and strengths. In col-

lege, instead of devoting my energy to studying the English text-

books in the classroom, I spent more time reading English books and

magazines on psychology, linguistics, and education. Rather than

spending time memorizing English literature as required, I took on

computer programming. Instead of worrying about my grades, I

spent a tremendous amount of time programming a piece of statis-

tics software for a research project. In the end, I developed great

proficiency in English by not following the prescribed program.

I have learned to be very open to new experiences. I have always

been willing to explore new opportunities. When opportunities

present themselves, I jump right in as long as they look interesting,

but I am not one who would keep at it at any cost when I realize that

it is not something I can be great at or enjoy doing. For example, I

tried making fish tanks after college but gave it up when I discovered

I have no talent in engineering. I quit being a college teacher to join

a translation business, but gave it up despite its success because I did

not find it interesting. I returned to be a college teacher afterwards

because I found that that was ultimately what interested me.

I was lucky on two fronts. First, I was lucky that my parents and

schools did not force me to fix my weaknesses according to

8 REACH foR GREATNESS

whatever their definitions of strengths or weaknesses were. They

were very forgiving of my weaknesses and appreciative of my

various adventures. Second, I was lucky that the massive societal

transformations in China and the world over the past few

decades made it possible for me to use my strengths and inter-

ests, just as the fog on Christmas Eve made it possible for

Rudolph to change his fate. If China had not restored its educa-

tion system after the Cultural Revolution, it would not have

been possible for me to go to college. If China had not opened

to the outside world, it would not have been possible for me to

migrate to the United States. If I had stayed in China, my pas-

sions and strengths would not have found as much value.

Fortunately, the changes I experienced in China are now wide-

spread for everyone. In other words, the foggy Christmas has

arrived for all due to technological changes. But unfortunately, the

accidental great educational experiences I had are not widespread.

To enable every child to be able to explore, experiment with, and

enhance his or her strengths, education must change.

THE FOGGY CHRISTMAS EVE HAS ARRIVED

The fundamental reason for people to worry about achievement

gaps stems from two assumptions underlying education today.

First, there is a set of skills and knowledge everyone must have in

order to live a successful life in the world. Second, all children are

capable of and interested in acquiring the skills and knowledge at

a similar pace. Thus, if a child is found to be behind others, we

must act to help him or her catch up at any cost.

These assumptions are not true any longer. First, changes in society

always redefine the value of knowledge and skills. What used to be

useful can become useless and what used to be useless can become

useful, as the experience of Rudolph and me suggests. Given recent

changes brought about by technology, there has been growing

recognition that traditionally valued skills and knowledge have

become obsolete, and we need new human qualities for the new

INTRoduCTIoN 9

world (Florida, 2012; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007;

Pink, 2006; Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Zhao, 2016a).

Second, current understandings of human nature and human learn-

ing suggest that human beings are differently talented (Gardner,

1983, 2006) and have different desires and interests (Reiss, 2000,

2004). Thanks to the diversity in the environment in which they are

born, humans also have different experiences that interact with

their natural talents and interests to give each person a unique, jag-

ged profile of abilities and desires, stronger in some areas and weaker

in others (Ridley, 2003; Rose, 2016). In other words, everyone has a

handsome leg and, at the same time, a deformed leg.

Third, in the new world where smart technology has replaced and

will continue to replace humans in routine tasks, we need human

beings to be unique, creative, and entrepreneurial (Schwab, 2015;

Wagner, 2008, 2012; World Economic Forum, 2016). Thus, to suc-

ceed in the world, we need an education that helps everyone to

become uniquely creative and entrepreneurial. Education needs to

stop preparing students to become a homogenous group of average

individuals—mediocre at everything but great at nothing—and to

begin helping everyone to become great.

Greatness comes from lots of efforts (Coyle, 2009), but it can only

be built on passion and strengths. If a person has no interest in a

domain, it is unlikely that he or she would be intrinsically moti-

vated to put in the necessary efforts needed for greatness. If a per-

son spends the same effort on developing abilities in domains

where he or she has neither talent nor rich resources, he or she is

unlikely to become great either. Thus, an education that aims to

cultivate greatness needs to be one that supports passion and

enhances strengths, instead of fixing deficits or closing gaps. It is

time to stop looking at the bad leg!

PLAN OF THE BOOK

This book is about teaching for greatness. Chapter 1 discusses why

education has been led to ignore passion and strengths. Chapter 2

makes the argument, based on current understanding of human

10 REACH foR GREATNESS

abilities, that every child can be great. It also brings in research

from different disciplines to show where strengths and passions

can be found. In Chapter 3, I discuss humans’ need to become

great in order to achieve peace with themselves and arrive at

authentic happiness. Chapter 4 argues that in order to teach for

greatness, we need to make education personalizable. Differing

from personalized learning fundamentally, personalizable educa-

tion gives students control over their own learning. Features of

personalizable education are also discussed. In the last chapter,

Chapter 5, I discuss what is needed to realize personalizable educa-

tion for all children.

Chapter 1 • the ambitious pursuit of medioCrity 11

CHAPTER

1 The Ambitious

Pursuit of Mediocrity

How Education Curtails Children’s

Potential for Greatness

Hanqing Liu was set up as an example of the disastrous conse-

quences of pursuing one’s passion by a Chinese newspaper in

2017. According to a widely circulated story first published in

Yangtse Evening (Wang, 2017), a local newspaper in Nanjing, China,

Liu was admitted to one of the most prestigious and competitive

universities in 1980 at the age of 16. At a time when less than

4 percent of high school graduates could be admitted to colleges in

China, it is not an exaggeration for Liu, from a poor village, to be

viewed as a prodigy. But now, at the age of 53, Liu is living off

12 reaCh for Greatness

government welfare in the rural village that had expected him to

achieve great accomplishments four decades ago.

Liu was ruined by his passion, the story implies. He was an excel-

lent student for the first two years in college. His life took a down-

ward turn his junior year when he accidentally read a story about

one of the best-known Chinese mathematicians who successfully

advanced research on Goldbach’s conjecture. Mathematically tal-

ented, Liu found a passion in mathematics and decided to devote

all his time and energy to the study of number theory. He became

so obsessed with the beautiful world of numbers that eating and

sleeping became a waste of time. He cut his sleep to two hours a

day, and he neglected his real major, heat treatment. He did not

follow the advice of his mentor and department chair to drop his

passion or wait until after graduation because he believed in his

passion and that he could become a great mathematician. He failed

a number of required courses in his senior year and was given an

extra year to make up, but eventually, he did not complete his

degree. Thus, he was not assigned a job by the government, which

automatically granted jobs to all college graduates in the 1980s. He

had to return to his village.

For the next thirty years, Liu continued his research on number

theory from his impoverished village home. He never left his vil-

lage again. He’s never been married and never worked beside his

research. He wrote a few papers, but none has been published or

recognized. He now lives on government welfare, which gives him

about 400 yuan (about $60) a month.

After thirty years of pursuing his passion, Liu has accomplished

nothing: no farming skills, no children, no wife, no career, no

publication, and no money. He is definitely not the great mathe-

matician he wanted to become. He is indeed the poster child of

what not to do in life. At the end of the story, the editor reflects,

“Pursuing dreams does not mean one should be entirely isolated

from reality and completely immersed in one’s own world.”

The story came out just a few days before the annual Chinese

National College Entrance Exam was to take place. It seems to be

a warning to the millions of students who were about to go to

Chapter 1 • the ambitious pursuit of medioCrity 13

college of the dangers of pursuing one’s passion with perseverance.

The story went viral on Chinese social media almost instantly.

VICTIM OF EDUCATION

I would not be surprised that many Chinese parents and teachers

would heed the warning and use this story to tell their children

and students not to pursue their passions. Many would consider

Liu a miserable failure and blame his perceived failure on his own

stubbornness and unrealistic pursuit. But I am not sure Liu’s life is

a failure, as he might have enjoyed his life in the beautiful world

of mathematics considerably more than heat treatment engineers

who live a more normal life.

More important, the real lesson from Liu’s story is not the danger of

pursuing one’s passion, but how education punishes and curtails

human potentials to be great. Liu, with his passion, talent, and per-

severance, could well have become a great mathematician with the

proper support and resources. While history cannot be undone, we

can imagine a completely different fate for Liu. If his mentor and

department chair believed that Liu was mathematically talented and

found value in his passion, they could have encouraged him to

change his major to mathematics or enabled him to transfer to a

math program. If he had been able to study as a math major, he

could have become one of the best students and not failed college.

If he had successfully completed college with a major in math, he

could have been given a job working on math. If he had been given

a job working on math, he would have had access to experts and

resources, including math journals and books he needed to advance

his research (none existed in his village). If he had had access to

other math researchers and resources, his research could have been

significant and then he would have had access to outlets to share his

research findings, which could have helped him refine his ideas and

advance more. As a result, he could have become a great mathema-

tician with groundbreaking discoveries at best. At worst, he could

have lived as a decent professional mathematician.

None of the “ifs” happened to Liu. He was deemed a failure because

he did not do what the education system wanted him to do. But

14 reaCh for Greatness

he should not be viewed as a victim of his passion; rather, he is a

victim of an education that does not reward passion or potential

for greatness.

GREATNESS DENIED

Liu’s story took place in China, but it can happen anywhere in the

world. Admittedly, due to differences in culture and educational sys-

tems, it happens with more or less frequency in different societies.

For example, American universities are generally more flexible and

diverse than the Chinese system. They allow much more flexibility

in changing majors of study, which gives people like Liu the possibil-

ity of switching into an area of his passion. Moreover, America as a

society has more resources and is more likely to give second chances,

which enables people who do not fit in the system at one time to

bounce back or succeed in other ways. This is why there are more

successful people who “failed” college but became great innovators

and entrepreneurs in the United States than in China.

However, the success of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg

does not conceal the fact that many more people with the potential

to become as great fail to realize their potential, even in America.

Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg are all fortunate to have been born into

the right families and communities. They had the good luck to

have the right neighbors, teachers, and friends. They happened

to be able to choose the right schools as well. Most children in

America do not have similar good fortune to be allowed to pursue

their passion. Even the few materially privileged or the so-called

best and brightest end up as “excellent sheep,” spending all their

resources and energy going through a process to amass excellent

test scores and gold stars to be admitted to elite colleges and doing

the same to graduate, as an ex-Yale English professor writes in his

book The Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and

the Way to a Meaningful Life (Deresiewicz, 2015). They become excel-

lent students but never realize the potential commensurate with

their talents, efforts, resources, and sufferings.

The efforts and sufferings students go through in order to become

excellent sheep is shocking (Gleason, 2017). Psychologist David

Chapter 1 • the ambitious pursuit of medioCrity 15

Gleason documents the strenuous and stressful process students in

selective schools go through in order to be “excellent” enough to be

admitted to elite colleges. He also documents the sacrifices students

and their families make for the same process. If the efforts and sacri-

fices were applied to pursue their strengths and passions, the students

could achieve much more than just getting into an elite college.

MANUFACTURED FAILURES

The fate of less privileged children can be even worse. It’s not just

that their passions and talents may never get discovered and nur-

tured so they can become great; they are also subject to a constant

and systematic assault on their confidence and self-esteem because

they are academically behind, as judged by some external stan-

dards and tests. They are reminded all the time, through test

scores, remediation programs, grade retention, or denial of a high

school diploma, that they are failures. Australian journalist Lucy

Clark writes about her daughter’s heartbreaking story of being a

failure in a contribution to the Guardian (Clark, 2014):

Over the two years of her higher school certificate, she has

truanted frequently, she has failed to hand in assignments,

she has failed to turn up on time, she has failed to meet uni-

form requirements, she has failed to attend some of her HSC

trial exams, she has exhausted the patience of teachers and

pushed to the outer limits the structural sympathies of the

public school system.

This is after many attempts at intervention and help that included

“innumerable official letters outlining her many misdemeanors”

and “programs of improvement, second chances, third chances,

and more.” Expulsion was also proposed. The sense of failure has

resulted in tremendous struggle for the teachers; parents; and, of

course, Clark’s daughter:

Every day of my daughter’s high school life has been a strug-

gle. She wakes up in the morning and the thought of going

to school—sometimes even the thought of going outside—is

16 reaCh for Greatness

like an enormous mountain to climb. Very often she hasn’t

been able to scale it.

There have been times when she just hasn’t made it all the

way to school: she sits in a park on her own, wondering why

she finds it all so hard while her friends trundle on ahead in

their “normality”; she has been doubled up in a laneway near

the school crying, riveted by her anxiety.

When she has made it there, sitting in class for the duration

of a lesson is the next mountain in the range. Anxious

thoughts crowd out her bandwidth, blocking the admission

of any useful information the teacher might be trying to

impart. She told me once in a moment of rare vulnerability

that she felt so distressed about being so behind in her class-

work that she spent the whole period fighting the urge to flee

and throw herself onto the train tracks.

Apparently, Clark’s story struck a chord with many parents. Her

piece, “My Daughter, My Beautiful Failure,” became a popular

read, and she expanded it into a popular book, Beautiful Failures:

How the Quest for Success Is Harming Our Kids (Clark, 2016). Clark’s

daughter is certainly a failure as judged by the existing education

system, which is also responsible for making her a failure. But is

she really a failure? Or, more importantly, could she have suc-

ceeded in other areas? Does she have other talents and passions

that can make her great? Apparently, yes. Besides resilience, Clark

writes about her daughter:

While she has missed just about every mark on the school-

work journey, she is highly functioning in her social

life. . . . What could be more important than succeeding at

your personal relationships? Don’t we say that at the end?

EDUCATION’S BIG LIE

“Become who you are,” “be yourself,” “follow your heart,” “dis-

cover yourself,” “reach your full potential,” and “find your pas-

sion” are among the most common bits of advice given to children

Chapter 1 • the ambitious pursuit of medioCrity 17

by motivational speakers and educators. Many schools put in their

promotional materials that they are all about helping children find

their passion and realize their potential. Even government educa-

tion policies talk about providing opportunities to help children

reach their full potential. Teachers and parents are constantly told

to have high expectations for each and every child.

But in reality, the education system rarely cares about the chil-

dren’s individual passions or talents. The only passion it cares

about is the passion to become a good student. The only talent it

values is the talent in being a good student: following school rules,

doing homework, sitting and listening to whatever is taught, get-

ting good grades, acing all tests, and never questioning the mean-

ing and value of what they are asked to learn and do in school.

With very few exceptions, schools generally do not ask what stu-

dents are good at, interested in, or passionate about. They do not

allocate resources based on students’ talents or passions. Virtually

all resources are allocated to implement the predetermined, pre-

defined curriculum in order to meet the requirements of the gov-

ernment or other governing bodies. The majority of schools do not

provide any significant financial resources to support student-

initiated programs out of their regular budgets, nor do they pro-

vide time out of the regular school day for students to pursue their

talents or passions. While a growing number of schools have begun

to implement programs such as genius hours and makerspaces to

support students’ pursuit of their interests, these programs are fairly

limited in scale and reach.

Worse, the current education system actively suppresses individual

talents and passions by defining what educational success means

and convincing students, parents, and the public to accept the

definition. It first convinces people that the skills and knowledge

prescribed in the curriculum are the only things worth learning,

the only things that lead to life’s success. Talents and passions out-

side the prescribed curriculum may be nice to have, but they won’t

lead to success in life. Then it constantly measures how children

are doing against the preset expectations in the curriculum. Thus,

the current definition of education success for individual children

18 reaCh for Greatness

is measured by how well they make the system think that they have

mastered the knowledge and skills the system wants them to learn,

through grades and tests. Making the system believe that they have

learned something is not necessarily the same as them having

actually learned something because grades can simply be about

sitting time, good (compliant) behavior in class, completing home-

work as required, and passing exams. And passing exams does not

necessarily mean children have actually learned something, either,

because the quality of exams varies.

Children often have to forgo their own interests and talents in

order to spend their time on the knowledge and skills that will

make them successful. This is especially true for those who are not

particularly talented in school subjects or interested in getting

good scores, like Lucy Clark’s daughter. Children who do not have

the good fortune to have access to resources that help them

become good at the prescribed subjects are even more likely to

have to give up their passions and talents because they have to

devote time to “catch up” to their peers.

THE AMBITIOUS PURSUIT OF MEDIOCRITY

The reason for blaming Liu’s pursuit of passion for his failed life is

the same as the reason for the manufactured failures like Lucy

Clark’s daughter. It is also the same as the cause of the production

of the “excellent sheep.” It is the ambitious pursuit of mediocrity,

which characterizes the current education system.

This pursuit of mediocrity is rooted in the belief of meritocracy.

Coined by the British sociologist Michael Young in his book first

published in 1958 (Young, 1959), the term meritocracy was meant

to describe a dystopian society that assigns individuals into differ-

ent occupations based on their merit, defined as intelligence and

efforts and measured by IQ tests. Written as a satire, Young

intended to use the book to warn against such a society (Young,

2001). Unfortunately, much to the chagrin of its creator, the term

has somehow transformed from a pejorative term into a positive

Chapter 1 • the ambitious pursuit of medioCrity 19

ideal embraced by political leaders and the general public (Allen,

2011; Celarent, 2009; Lemann, 2000; Young, 2001).

The appeal of meritocracy stems from its ostensible fairness and

justness (Allen, 2011). In a meritocratic system, individuals are

rewarded for their own merits (Sen, 2000), and social stratification

is based on individual ability and efforts (Allen, 2011; Kaus, 1992;

Young, 2001) rather than inheritance. It promises to give everyone

a fair chance for social ascendance if they have the ability and put

in efforts.

The logic of meritocracy is built on a set of seemingly reasonable

assumptions. First, the society is hierarchically organized like a

pyramid, with the few people on top awarded more responsibili-

ties, resources, and power and the masses at the bottom with fewer

responsibilities and resources. Second, assuming all members of

the society desire to occupy higher positions, there needs to be a

fair and just way to distribute these positions. Third, all members

of a society have different degrees of merit, some more and some

less. Fourth, merit can be accurately measured. Fifth, people can be

sorted according to the outcomes of merit measures. Those with

higher scores deserve to be at the top with more resources and

more responsibilities, while those with lower scores should stay at

the bottom.

In practice, many societies use schooling to implement meritoc-

racy, and thus schools operate as a meritocracy as well. Standardized

test scores such as IQ and SAT are used to grant or deny access to

educational opportunities ranging from different levels of univer-

sities to talented and gifted programs in schools (Lemann, 2000).

Higher scores are interpreted as having more merit and thus

awarded better opportunities such as more advanced studies (col-

lege and graduate school) and more prestigious universities. Lower

scores are viewed as having less merit and are accordingly denied

access to more educational opportunities.

Education credentials or different levels of education attainment

are used as the primary determinant in the distribution of jobs and

income (Collins, 1979; Fallows, 1989; Kaus, 1992). It is standard

practice that different jobs require different levels of education,

20 reaCh for Greatness

and jobs requiring higher levels of education often pay more.

Thus, those who are denied access to advanced education are also

denied access to higher paying jobs. It is no surprise that income is

closely associated with levels of education. Furthermore, the pres-

tige of higher education institutions is also a major factor in hiring

practices, with those who have access to more prestigious institu-

tions favored for more prestigious jobs.

Therefore, in order to succeed in a meritocracy, to be placed higher

on the hierarchy, one needs to demonstrate more merit than oth-

ers. Merit is often measured with standardized tests, so doing well

on these tests naturally becomes the goal of most students and

parents. Since the reputation of educational institutions is largely

determined by how well their students do on tests, teachers and

school leaders also work hard to ensure their students perform

well. Thus, the entire education industry is about producing excel-

lent test scores or improving the merit of students.

As such, meritocracy leads to an ambitious, all-out pursuit of medi-

ocrity in a number of ways. First, most standardized tests used to

judge merit report a single score. These tests are typically norm-

referenced, which means all students are judged against each

other. In other words, one’s merit is always relative to others.

Those with higher scores are deemed to have more merit than

those with lower scores. Thus, no matter how much merit a stu-

dent actually possesses, his or her merit is defined by how well

other students do on the same test. Norm-referenced tests dictate

that no students can achieve at higher levels without others

achieving at lower levels. Thus, it is mathematically impossible

for all children to be excellent, or even above the average. In fact,

half of the students are below average and only a very small per-

centage (about 3 percent) of students are considered “very supe-

rior.” This is why only about 3 percent of eleventh graders qualify

for the National Merit Scholarship Program each year. As a result,

most students are deemed mediocre, no matter how hard they try

or how much they know. It is not possible for all to be great,

nor is it necessary, as long as one can be better than a sufficient

number of others in the same group.

Chapter 1 • the ambitious pursuit of medioCrity 21

Second, a test, regardless of its quality, only assesses a student’s

ability in taking the test, that is, giving predetermined answers to

predetermined questions in predetermined ways. The result of a

test is one’s ability measured by the test. It cannot measure

anything beyond the test. As Dr. Hugh Morrison of Queen’s

University Belfast argues, “[M]athematical ability, indeed any

ability, is not an intrinsic property of the individual; rather, it’s a

joint property of the individual and the measuring instrument”

(Morrison, 2013). Thus, suppose Albert Einstein took a high

school physics exam. The best he could do is the highest score on

this test. But we cannot say that Einstein’s ability in physics is the

same as a high school student who also scored the highest on

the same test. It is just like using a scale that ranges from 50 to

100 lbs. to weigh a 300-lb. object; the result is that the 300-lb.

object weighs the same as a 100-lb. object. Thus, no test can mea-

sure true greatness or excellence, which gives no reason for stu-

dents to become better than what is required to achieve a good

score on a test. Even the top-scoring students are not great

compared to what they could achieve.

Third, merit is limited to one’s ability and interest in performing

well on tests in a few subjects, primarily language, math, science,

and social sciences. But not all students are born equally inter-

ested or strong in these areas, nor are they born with the same

opportunities to develop abilities in these areas. As a result, some

students are born with an advantage over others, thus contradict-

ing the defining assumption of meritocracy: Merit is not heredi-

tary. Student academic achievement has been shown to be closely

associated with family backgrounds.

More important, the narrow definition of merit directs educa-

tional resources to developing only those abilities viewed as

meritorious. Students who may be otherwise talented are often

treated as failures and needing remediation. Their talents and

passions are never supported. These students could become great

in their own ways, but they never get the opportunity and thus

become, at best, mediocre.

22 reaCh for Greatness

SUMMARY

The current education paradigm, rooted in the blind belief in

meritocracy, does not encourage, inspire, or support individuals to

become great in their own ways. Instead, it produces mediocrity by

aggressively and actively pushing all students to achieve so-called

academic excellence, which is impossible given how meritocracy

functions today. As a result, it victimizes passion, denies greatness,

and manufactures failures in students.

More importantly, meritocracy-driven education today instills a

number of beliefs in parents, students, educators, and the public

against the development of passions and strengths:

•• Not all children can be great. A narrow definition of merit and the norm-referenced approach make it clear that some

children must be worse than others. It is impossible for all

children to be above the average. As a result, some parents

and educators hold low expectations for some children. Some

children even have low ambitions and give up early.

•• Not all talents are worth developing. All children are talented in different ways, but the narrow definition of merit tells

parents, educators, and children that talents outside the aca-

demic subjects tested as merit are not worth developing.

•• Not all passions are worth supporting. Children can be pas- sionate about different things, but quite often schools tell

them that not all their passions are valuable or useful. Parents

and educators also believe that only passions for achieving the

narrowly defined merit are worth supporting and encouraging.

These beliefs may have been true in the past but not any longer

because the world today needs and can use all talents (Zhao, 2009,

2012, 2016a). Furthermore, suppressing passions and not recogniz-

ing individual strengths not only damages students’ confidence

and self-esteem, but also leads to a waste of talents.

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 23

CHAPTER

2 All Children Are Above

the Average The Potential for Greatness

Given the virtually non-negotiable importance attached to math in schools, parents and teachers are told constantly to make sure that students are performing at their grade level as early

as preschool (Bailey, 2014). And if not, immediate remedial actions

should be taken so the child does not fall behind later. Parents,

teachers, and policymakers who are anxious to fix preschoolers’

deficiency can take solace in the story of Jack Ma, founder of

Alibaba, one of the world’s largest internet companies and the

largest retailer. Ma took the Chinese College Entrance Exam of the

Gaokao in 1982. He failed to achieve the score to be admitted to

college with only one point in math. That is one out of a possible

score of 120 points. He tried again a year later, and this time he

raised his score significantly—to 19 points. That’s not good enough

24 reaCh for greatness

still. He made another attempt in 1984, and this time scored

seventy-nine out of 120. Still, his total score was not high enough

for even the lowest tier of four-year colleges. He ended up in a

three-year program, majoring in English-Language teaching and

earned a B.A. in English in 1988. Ma also applied to and was

rejected by Harvard ten times.

Judging by his performance in math exams, few would have pre-

dicted that Ma would be successful in the high-tech industry,

which is often believed to require a lot of math. Business should

not have been his career choice, either, because it is believed to be

even more math intensive. And he did not choose to study busi-

ness (or perhaps was not allowed to choose given his math scores).

Jack Ma loved English, though. He began studying English at a

young age in Hangzhou, one of the first Chinese cities that

attracted many Western tourists in the early 1980s. He practiced

English with foreign tourists by volunteering to be their tour

guides around the city. He biked 40 minutes from home to an

international hotel in order to practice English with foreigners.

English became a great asset, and upon graduation, he became an

English teacher. More importantly, his English skills put him on

the launch pad to a great career. In 1995, Ma visited the United

States and had his first encounter with the internet. The lack of

information about beer from China and China in general inspired

him to create a website, and the rest is history.

Today, Ma is one of the richest persons in Asia and 14th richest in

the world. More importantly, Ma has led the revolution of retail,

banking, and internet industries in China. He has created a plat-

form for millions of ordinary Chinese to become business owners

online and market their products worldwide. Fortune ranked him

second in its 2017 World’s Greatest Leaders list.

Ma’s story has three important lessons. First, there is no need to fix

a child’s deficit too early. In fact, too much fixing too early can

backfire. If it must be fixed, it can be done later. Besides Ma, there

is Adam Steltzner, a “college dropout and small-town playboy (he

briefly dated the model Carré Otis), an assistant manager at an

organic market and an occasional grower of weed” who “had few

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 25

skills and fewer prospects” but later became a NASA engineer who

led the Mars Science Laboratory’s EDL phase (Bilger, 2013).

Steltzner struggled at school and was told by his elementary school

principal that he wasn’t very bright. His geometry teacher passed

him with an F plus the second time he took the class just to avoid

seeing him again. “His father told him he’d never amount to any-

thing but a ditch digger” (Palca, 2012). He played rock and roll and

went to music school for less than a year after high school. By any

standard measure, Steltzner did not have the qualifications or per-

haps talents to become a great engineer who would get a Ph.D.

from CalTech and help design a Mars lander. His accomplishments

as an engineer earned him membership in the prestigious Academy

of Engineers in 2016.

There is also John Gurdon, the boy who was told by his headmas-

ter that he was too stupid to study science but later won the Nobel

Prize in medicine or physiology in 2012 for his pioneering work

on cloning. His headmaster was wrong, but his judgment was

based on solid data: John Gurdon ranked last out of 250 students

in his year group at biology and in the bottom group of every other

science subject when he was 15 (Collins, 2012).

Second, all children can learn, especially when it is necessary, but

not all children can be great at everything. Third and most import-

ant, all children can be great at something. Ma’s math, even after

three years of intensive remedial work, was below average, but he

definitely had the potential to be above average, even great, at

something else, perhaps English and entrepreneurship.

THE LAKE WOBEGON EFFECT: (NOT SO) ILLUSIONARY SUPERIORITY

“High expectations” has become one of the most widely accepted

concepts in education reforms. While it seems a great idea to hold

high expectations for all children, what constitutes high expecta-

tions is not clear. For example, is the expectation that “all children

learn to read by third grade” higher than the expectation that “all

children can be great”? Or is the expectation that all students

26 reaCh for greatness

obtain perfect scores on the PISA—or any standardized tests, for

that matter—higher than expecting all students to be great?

The answer is clear, at least to me. In both cases, the latter con-

stitutes much higher expectations than the former. Having all

children be great is without any question a much higher goal

and worthier outcome than expecting all children to read by

third grade or all students to obtain perfect scores on some stan-

dardized tests.

But is it possible to expect all children to be great? Is such an

expectation simply a feel-good idea but completely irrational?

To start, we need a definition of great. While there are many differ-

ent definitions, the one offered by the Oxford Dictionary of

English works for our purposes: “of ability, quality, or eminence

considerably above average.” In other words, the expectation of all

children being great is to expect all children to have “ability, qual-

ity, or eminence considerably above average.”

Such expectation seems to be completely irrational at first sight. In

fact, psychologists have uncovered a human tendency to overesti-

mate their positive qualities (Hoorens, 1993). In some cultures

such as the United States, it has been found that most people tend

to believe they are better at driving, more likable, smarter, funnier,

healthier, and happier than the average people. This above-the-

average belief has been dubbed the Lake Wobegon Effect, after

Garrison Keillor’s popular humorous line describing the people in

his fictional hometown Lake Wobegon, where “all the women are

strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are

above average.”

This self-enhanced sense of superiority is academically known as

illusionary superiority. It is considered illusionary because it seems

impossible that most members of a given group, let alone all, can

be above the group average. The intuitive assumption is that the

average is the middle point of a spectrum—with half above and

half below it. This assumption is only correct when the “average”

means the median, or the middle value of a series of numbers. For

example, if we have a group of eleven students whose scores on a

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 27

math test are 100, 100, 90, 90, 90, 85, 80, 30, 30, 30, and 30, the

median is 85, which means five people are above 85, and five

below 85. In this case, it is not true that most people can be above

the “average.”

But if the “average” is the mean, which is typically what average

means, the assumption is not true. In the aforementioned exam-

ple, the average is 68.63, which means seven out of the eleven

students are above the average and only four are below the aver-

age. That is, most of the students are above the average. It is also

quite possible to have a scenario that nine out of ten can be above

the average. For example, if nine students received a 50 on a math

test and one received 10, the average is 46, which means nine out

of the ten students are above the average, with only one below.

Thus, the finding that most people think they are above the aver-

age is not as absurd as it appears. While it is statistically impossible

for all in a group to be above the average, it is actually possible for

most people to be above the average. It is, in fact, very important

to accept that most people can be above the average. For example, the view that most people cannot be healthier than the average, as

has been traditionally held, has led to overdiagnosis but not nec-

essarily improved health in general. Recent research in the medical

field found that it is not absurd for most people to believe they are

healthier than the average people and thus below the average risk

of having certain diseases. For example, it is actually rational for

most Americans to believe they are below the average risk of hav-

ing lung cancer because the average cancer risk for nonsmokers is

much lower than for smokers, and there are more nonsmokers

than smokers. Denying this fact could lead to overdiagnosis, which

has been a common problem in medicine (Vickers & Kent, 2015).

ALL CHILDREN ARE ABOVE AVERAGE: JAGGED PROFILES

While it is possible that most people can be above the average, is

it possible for all to be above the average? Garrison Keillor certainly

meant it as a joke, a light-hearted way to poke fun at the illusionary

28 reaCh for greatness

self-inflation tendency of some human beings. But interpreted

differently, the belief that all children are above the average is not

a self-enhancing illusion or some soothing chicken soup. It is actu-

ally theoretically possible for all people to be above the average. It

is also practically plausible to expect everyone to become great.

The idea that it is impossible for all to be above the average is only

true when a single measure is applied to a single quality. For exam-

ple, all members of a group cannot be above the average in height.

Someone must be below the average, although it is possible to

imagine that a majority can be above the average if there are a

number of people in the group who are extremely short. The same

is true in other cases when using a single measure such as IQ scores

or GPAs.

However, we can find that everyone in a group is above the average

when multiple qualities are measured. For example, a person may

be below the average in height but can easily be above the average

in weight. Similarly, a person can be below the average in playing

basketball, but above the average in solving math problems.

Table 2.1 shows the test scores of three hypothetical students—

A, B, and C—in three subjects. A is above the average in English,

B is above the average in science, and C is above the average in

math. Thus, it would not be irrational to say that all three students

are above the average. It is also true that all are below the average

and just at the average. The reality is that each student has his or

her unique profile of above-average performance in one area and

below-average performance in another area, indicating their

unique profiles of strengths and weaknesses. This phenomenon is

called a jagged profile (Rose, 2016).

This is a jagged profile on one dimension: academic subjects. An

individual’s profile is not constrained to one dimension because

human qualities span across many dimensions. Thus, the same can

be true in other domains of human qualities. For example, Howard

Gardner suggests that human beings have different profiles of

intelligences (Gardner, 1983). That is, human beings are talented

in different areas, with each individual varying in his or her poten-

tial ability in one or more areas. Thus, it is possible to imagine that

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 29

Student A can be extremely talented in music (100) but extremely

weak in visual/spatial (5) and average in interpersonal intelligence

(50). Student B can be extremely talented in visual/spatial (100),

but extremely weak in interpersonal intelligence (5) and average in

music (50). Student C can be extremely talented in interpersonal

intelligence (100), but extremely weak in music (5) and average in

visual/spatial (50). Figure 2.1 depicts this situation.

Table 2.1 illustration of all above the average

Subject

Student

A B C Average

English 100 0 50 50

Math 0 50 100 50

Science 50 100 0 50

Average 50 50 50 50

Student C Student B

Student A

100

80

0

Music Visual Interpersonal

60

40

20

Figure 2.1 Jagged profiles of three students

30 reaCh for greatness

More importantly, different domains interact with each other.

What makes each individual great is the result of interactions

among qualities in different domains. A person’s ability is at least

the result of interactions between passion and talent. Taking the

example of the three hypothetical students further, we can see how

passion may contribute to the development of abilities. Student A

is extremely talented in music, but he has zero interest in it. It is

thus unlikely he would develop musical abilities to a very high

level. Student C is extremely weak in musical talent but has great

interest in it, so she may acquire some music skills through prac-

tice but cannot become a highly skilled musician. Student B’s tal-

ent in music is only average, but he is extremely passionate about

music and puts in a lot of efforts. So out of the three students, B

eventually would become the best musician (see Figure 2.2).

There are many more domains that can affect the jagged profile of

qualities and abilities. Individuals can vary in a multitude of

domains that both affect and constitute their qualities and abilities.

These domains can be both innate and experiential—more likely

the interactions between the two, such as physicality, personality,

0 Student A Student B Student C

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Talent Passion Total

Figure 2.2 how passion shapes ability

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 31

talents, opportunities, efforts, friends, and families. Each domain con-

sists of multiple qualities across a spectrum, along which individuals

vary. And these variations within a domain and combinations thereof

make up a jagged profile for each individual, making everyone unique.

When everyone is a unique individual, there is no average. When

there is no average, everyone can be said to be great in his or her

own ways. This is why there are no two identical individuals and

average persons in the world.

DOMAINS OF POTENTIAL FOR GREATNESS

Human potential for greatness can exist in a variety of areas.

Humans can be great in one or more domains. It is also possible

that their greatness comes from combining their potential across

domains. Below are some of the known domains that contribute to

the making of unique individual profiles of potential for greatness.

physical

Human physicality varies a great deal in build, height, weight,

dexterity, lung capacity, strength, and many other areas. Physical

endowment is the foundation for sports activities and other phys-

ical tasks such as dancing. Different sports require different profiles

of physical attributes. A good football player has a different profile

from a good gymnast.

Cognitive/talents

The cognitive domain is another source of major variations.

Although there is still disagreement, the idea that human beings are

differently talented instead of having one generic intelligence seems

to have been generally accepted. There are different proposals about

human diversity. One of the better known is Howard Gardner’s the-

ory of multiple intelligences. Despite various criticisms of the the-

ory, it serves as a good example of how to think about strengths and

weaknesses in the cognitive domain. Gardner’s theory originally

outlines seven areas in which individuals can have varying degrees

of talent (see Table 2.2; Gardner & Hatch, 1989). Later, Gardner

32

Ta b

le 2

.2

g ar

d n e r’ s

o ri

g in

al s

e ve

n i n te

lli g

e n ce

s*

In te

lli g

e n ce

/T a le

n t

E x a m

p le

s o

f O

cc u p

a ti

o n s

C o

re C

o m

p o

n e n ts

Lo g

ic al

-m at

h e m

at ic

al

S ci

e n ti

st ,

m at

h e m

at ic

ia n ,

co m

p u te

r p

ro g

ra m

m e r,

e n g

in e e r

S e n si

ti vi

ty t

o ,

an d

c ap

ac it

y to

d is

ce rn

, lo

g ic

al o

r n u m

e ri

ca l

p at

te rn

s; a

b ili

ty t

o h

an d

le l o

n g

c h ai

n s

o f

re as

o n in

g

Li n

g u is

ti c

P o

e t,

j o

u rn

al is

t, s

cr e e n w

ri te

r, ac

to r

S e n si

ti vi

ty t

o t

h e s

o u n d

s, r

h yt

h m

s, a

n d

m e an

in g

s o

f w

o rd

s;

se n si

ti vi

ty t

o t

h e d

iff e re

n t

fu n ct

io n s

o f

la n g

u ag

e

M u si

ca l

C o

m p

o se

r, vi

o lin

is t,

D J,

s in

g e r

A b

ili ty

t o

p ro

d u ce

a n d

a p

p re

ci at

e r

h yt

h m

, p

it ch

, an

d t

im b

re ;

ap p

re ci

at io

n o

f th

e f

o rm

s o

f m

u si

ca l e xp

re ss

iv e n e ss

S p

at ia

l N

av ig

at o

r, sc

u lp

to r,

vi rt

u al

r e al

it y

d e ve

lo p

e r,

vi d

e o

-g am

e d

e si

g n e r

C ap

ac it

y to

p e rc

e iv

e t

h e v

is u al

-s p

at ia

l w

o rl

d a

cc u ra

te ly

a n

d

to p

e rf

o rm

t ra

n sf

o rm

at io

n s

o n o

n e ’s

i n it

ia l p

e rc

e p

ti o

n s

B o

d ily

-k in

ae st

h e ti

c D

an ce

r, at

h le

te ,

p h ys

ic al

co

m e d

ia n ,

ac ro

b at

A

b ili

ty t

o c

o n tr

o l o

n e ’s

b o

d y

m o

ve m

e n ts

a n d

t o

h an

d le

o

b je

ct s

sk ill

fu lly

In te

rp e rs

o n al

T

h e ra

p is

t, s

al e sm

an ,

cu st

o m

e r

se rv

ic e ,

lif e c

o ac

h

C ap

ac it

y to

d is

ce rn

a n d

r e sp

o n d

a p

p ro

p ri

at e ly

t o

t h

e m

o o

d s,

te

m p

e ra

m e n ts

, m

o ti

va ti

o n s,

a n d

d e si

re s

o f

o th

e r

p e

o p

le

In tr

ap e rs

o n al

P

sy ch

o lo

g is

t, p

h ilo

so p

h e r,

w ri

te r,

th e o

lo g

ia n

A cc

e ss

t o

o n e ’s

o w

n f

e e lin

g s

an d

t h e a

b ili

ty t

o d

is cr

im in

at e

am

o n g

t h e m

a n d

d ra

w a

cc u ra

te ly

u p

o n t

h e m

t o

g u id

e

b e h av

io r;

k n o

w le

d g

e o

f o

n e ’s

o w

n s

tr e n g

th s,

w e ak

n e

ss e

s,

d e si

re s,

a n d

i n te

lli g

e n ce

s

*A d

ap te

d f

ro m

G ar

d n

e r

& H

at ch

(1 9 8 9 ).

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 33

suggested that other constructs, such as naturalistic, existential, and

teaching-pedagogical, might be useful to include as categories of

intelligence.

Daniel Pink proposes a framework that divides human capacities

into left-brain-directed, or L-Directed Thinking, and right-brain-

directed, or R-Directed Thinking (Pink, 2006). This framework can

also be helpful for looking for strengths. According to Pink,

L-Directed Thinking skills are sequential, literal, functional, tex-

tual, and analytic, which are functions believed to be performed

by the left hemisphere of the human brain. The R-Directed

Thinking skills are simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contex-

tual, and synthetic, which are functions assigned to the right

hemisphere of the brain. While Pink does not describe specific

L-Directed Thinking skills, he provides detailed descriptions of

R-Directed Thinking skills, which he believes are gaining more

value (see Table 2.3).

Table 2.3 pink’s r-directed thinking*

Ability Description

Design The ability to “create something physically beautiful and emotionally transcendent.”

Story The ability to “fashion a compelling narrative.”

Symphony The ability to see “the big picture and be able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole.”

Empathy The ability to “understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.”

Play The ability to “laugh and bring laughter to others.”

Meaning The ability to “pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.”

*Adapted from Pink (2005, pp. 65–67).

34 reaCh for greatness

personality

Personality is yet another significant domain that comprises human

qualities. While there are different definitions of personality, it gen-

erally refers to the characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and

behavior of individuals. The most popular theory is the Big Five

Model (Goldberg, 1993). According to this model, five traits seem to

capture the wide range of personalities. That is, any individual’s

personality is a combination of these five factors. Individuals can fall

on any point on the spectrum of each factor. For example, an indi-

vidual can be high on one, low on another, average on a third, and

so on, which is yet another jagged profile. Table 2.4 summarizes the

Big Five personality traits (Toegel & Barsoux, 2012).

Table 2.4 the big five personality traits*

Trait Description

Openness: inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious

The extent to which an individual is curious, open, adventurous, creative, and appreciative of novelty and variety

Conscientiousness: efficient/organized vs. easy-going/ careless

The extent to which an individual tends to be organized and dependable, shows self-discipline, acts dutifully, aims for achievement, and prefers planned rather than spontaneous behavior

Extraversion: outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved

The extent to which an individual seeks stimulation in the company of others; has the tendency to be talkative, energetic, assertive, and sociable; possesses positive emotions, and seeks attention

Agreeableness: friendly/ compassionate vs. analytical/detached

The extent to which an individual has a tendency to be agreeable, trusting, and helpful to others, and avoids confrontation

Neuroticism: sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident

The extent to which an individual experiences unpleasant emotions easily and is impulsive, anxious, angry, and emotionally unstable

*Adapted from Toegel & Barsoux (2012).

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 35

passion/intrinsic drives

Passion is another domain in which human beings vary a great

deal. People are passionate about different things. Passions are

rooted in instinctual desires and basic needs. Psychologist Steven

Reiss proposes that there are 16 basic needs that capture all

human needs, but individuals have different combinations of

them (Reiss, 2000, 2004). In other words, different people have

stronger or weaker desires across these 16 areas. These basic needs

can be viewed as passions, as shown in Table 2.5.

Table 2.5 sixteen basic desires according to reiss (2000, 2004)

Basic Desire Passionate About

Acceptance Being accepted, appreciated, and recognized; belonging

Curiosity Exploring the unknown, knowledge, and learning

Eating Food (finding, preparing, and enjoying food)

Family Caring for one’s children

Honor Being truthful to their principles and faithful to cultural and traditional values and norms of one’s ethnic group, family, or nation

Idealism Social justice, altruism, equity, and fairness

Independence Autonomy, being self-reliant, and distinct

Order Being organized, structured, and prepared; following established rules

Physical activity Working out, exercising the body, physical movement

Power Leadership, taking responsibility and control, and influence over others

Romance Sensuality, design, art, beauty, intimate relationships, and sexual relationships

(Continued)

36 reaCh for greatness

experiences, Knowledge, and skills

Talent, personality, and passion are the foundational sources of

strengths and weaknesses, and they are enhanced or suppressed by

experiences. When children come to school, what they know and are

able to do vary a great deal as a result. Thus, educators can look for

strengths in students’ prior experiences and their knowledge and skill.

When looking for potential for greatness, it is essential to avoid

applying a predetermined set of criteria to all students, particularly

standards or conceptions stemming from what has been traditionally

considered useful. Curriculum standards are especially to be avoided

because a student’s strength may lie beyond their typically narrow

definition. Standardized assessments for determining interests, pas-

sions, and strengths should also be avoided because such tools (e.g.,

career guidance assessments) often are based on predetermined

careers or professions, instead of on what students might possess.

A student’s experience can be his or her potential for greatness.

For example, immigrant children can have unique cross-cultural

insights and appreciation for linguistic diversity. Their native

language(s) is an excellent point of strength that can support the

learning of another language more efficiently. The difficulties and

Basic Desire Passionate About

Saving Possessions, collecting and keeping things

Social contact Relationships with others, companionship, and social acquaintances

Social status Social significance, achievement, distinction, and elitism

Tranquility Emotional stability, stable relations, security, calm, and protection

Vengeance Comparing oneself to others, striking back, aggression, and retaliation

Table 2.5 (Continued)

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 37

challenges in moving between communities and cultures of

immigrant children, especially those who have suffered from a

multitude of hardships, may be a source of extreme flexibility,

resilience, and cultural sensitivity.

Students can come to school with unique sets of skills and knowl-

edge that are not necessarily recognized as valuable strengths, but

they can be great starting points for further development. For

example, a student could have developed excellent skills with and

knowledge of video games or taking care of animals. These skills

and knowledge may not fit in the curriculum but nonetheless can

have tremendous social value for the student among his or her

peers. More importantly, either can be a starting point for learning

video game design, science, or other academic subjects.

family, Community, and social relationships

The source of greatness goes beyond individual qualities such as

talent, personality, passion, experiences, skills, and knowledge. It

can also be students’ social and physical contexts. Thus, when

looking for the strengths of students, educators need to inquire

and understand their families, communities, and social connec-

tions, as well as other resources available to them.

Students’ family can help them develop strength in unique ways.

For example, students whose parents are musicians or love music

can have more experiences with music and thus develop a unique

interest and ability in music. Likewise, those students whose par-

ents are athletes or sports lovers can develop more interest and

knowledge in sports. Similarly, students whose parents are into

science, reading, math, or engineering can have more opportuni-

ties to develop knowledge and skills in these areas.

Besides parents, siblings, relatives, and even neighbors are sources

of opportunities for students to develop knowledge, skills, and

interests that put them above the average in unique areas. For

instance, a student may have access to a neighbor who is an expert

in some area or in some position to help him or her develop skills

or spark an interest. Or, a student may have a brother or sister who

serves as a model or mentor.

38 reaCh for greatness

Communities can also be a source of strengths for students.

Students in communities that value arts and have an abundance of

artists, galleries, and art classes can have more opportunities to

become interested in and better at art, for example. Likewise, com-

munities that are rich with science museums, makerspaces, and a

tinkering culture offer more opportunities for children to develop

interest and strengths in science and engineering. Similarly, stu-

dents living in diverse neighborhoods have more opportunities to

develop an appreciation for and interest in cultural and linguistic

diversity. This is why some communities are well known for pro-

ducing great athletes, some for musicians, others for chefs, and still

others for scientists or linguists.

Creativity

Finally, all human beings possess creativity. They are born with the

ability to come up with new ideas, methods, theories, concepts,

and products. They are able to transform traditional ideas, meth-

ods, and products and transcend traditional boundaries and rules.

Their natural-born creativity makes it possible for human beings to

create original and worthwhile products, ideas, and methods in

one or more domains that set them apart. It is also possible that

individuals may develop a new set of unique talents by creatively

combining their average skills in different domains into something

that makes them great.

To summarize, each and every student can have a combination of

innate qualities and environmental experiences that helps turn him

or her into a unique individual. Each student has some qualities

that distinguish him or her from others, making him or her above

average in some way. The key is to have a strength mindset and to

look for the strengths of each child. When you look hard enough,

without preconceived views, you will find them in all children.

THE AUTISTIC KID WHO BECAME GREAT WITH WORDS

Few people would call autism a blessing. As a neurodevelopmental

disorder (Geschwind, 2008), autism or autism spectrum disorder

Chapter 2 • all Children are above the average 39

negatively impacts communication and social skills. Some of the

symptoms of high-functioning autism are anxiety and lower verbal

reasoning ability (Sanders, 2009). Thus, it is difficult to imagine

that a person who made a career out of spoken and written words

and performing for large audiences on stage and radio is on the

autism spectrum and called it a blessing.

That person is Garrison Keillor, the one who came up with the

phrase “all the children are above average.” The creator and host

of the popular weekly TV show A Prairie Home Companion for

42 years partially credited “his gift for story to his belief that he’s

on the autism spectrum” (CBS News, 2016). In an interview with

CBS News upon his retirement from the show in 2016, Keillor con-

firmed that he was “high-functioning autistic” and said he never

makes eye contact.

Keillor was lucky, not only because he is on the autism spec-

trum, but also because he was not diagnosed as a child. So “he

was allowed to be himself, a little apart. Noticing, listening . . .”

(CBS News, 2016). Had he been diagnosed, the world might not

have enjoyed an outstanding show for 42 years because Keillor

could have been subject to intervention aimed at helping him

function better. He was also lucky to have a speech teacher who

taught him how to face fear of people: “If you take off your

glasses, you can’t see them, and they won’t look like people

anymore—she said they’ll look like flowers on a hillside!” (CBS

News, 2016).

Keillor heeded the teacher’s advice and learned not to be afraid

of people he cannot see. He took on broadcasting and brought

us many humorous, imaginative, and poignant stories for over

40 years on radio. He also wrote novels and essays, and created fas-

cinating characters. Among the numerous recognitions he received

for his accomplishments is the Medal for Spoken Language from

the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1990, which speaks

loudly about Keillor’s greatness with words.

Garrison Keillor’s greatness is uniquely Garrison Keillor. It is the

result of the unique combination of his talents, passions, and

experiences. It cannot be simply replicated, nor do others need to

40 reaCh for greatness

copy him, because everyone has the potential to be as great as

Keillor, in his or her unique way. But his story compels us to ask

the question, To what extent have the interventions applied to the

many children with autism actually squandered their potential to

become great?

Chapter 3 • a MusiCian Must Make MusiC 41

CHAPTER

3 A Musician Must

Make Music The Need to Be Great

Josh helped me overcome my snake phobia. I had always been

fearful of snakes, but during one of my visits to Australia, I

decided I needed to get rid of this abnormal fear. While visiting

Templestowe College, a secondary school in Eastern Melbourne,

I was told by Principal Peter Hutton that the school has a zoo. I

asked him if he could help me with my snake phobia. Peter took

me to eighth grader Josh, who greeted me with warmth. He took

me around the reptile room and proudly introduced me to the

different kinds of snakes and lizards in various containers.

Afterwards, he took out a huge python from its container and

wrapped it around himself. With great confidence, he explained

to me how pythons live and why they won’t bite me. Then he

invited me to touch the python. I obliged, albeit reluctantly. It did

not feel the way I had feared. Josh then asked me to take the python

and put it around my neck. Under his encouraging eyes, I did

42 reaCh for Greatness

what he told me, with him holding the tail. I had the python

around me for a few minutes and became completely comfortable

with it. I was freed from my fear of snakes!

I told Peter how impressed I was with Josh’s professional knowledge

of the reptiles, confident demeanor, clear explanations, and passion-

ate care for the animals. Peter then told me that Josh wasn’t like this

a year ago when he came to the school. Josh was born into a dys-

functional family and was raised by his grandmother. He was picked

on all the time for his Tourette syndrome in his old school. He had

very poor academic performance, very low self-esteem, and little

interest in going to school. In fact, he was about to drop out of

school completely when Peter, who knew Josh’s grandma, invited

Josh to visit Templestowe after hearing about Josh’s situation.

Josh decided to move to Templestowe, mostly for its animals pro-

gram. He joined the animals group because he was interested in

pets. Josh took a fancy to snakes and took responsibility for caring

for the snakes the school had. Because he was enjoying the snakes,

he convinced his grandma to allow him to take the five or six

snakes home during school holidays. Taking care of so many

snakes is not easy. He had to learn how to do it—food, tempera-

ture, sanitation, and so on. He took courses about animal care and

became really good with snakes. He then began to teach other

students about snakes. He quickly became admired and respected

by other students. He rose to become one of the leaders of the

animals group in the school.

Josh also became entrepreneurial. He developed a program to

charge other kids from neighboring elementary schools for teach-

ing them how to clean the snakes and other animals. He hired a

teacher from a teacher supply company to be his supervisor as he

was underage as a teacher. To recruit kids from other schools for his

program, he needed to learn to write and run ads in the local news-

paper. “He is now confident and quite the entrepreneur,” Peter

updated me recently. He just won one of the ten startup grants the

school offers to students annually. He invested his $2,500 startup

fund in an animal breeding business. He bought a pair of breeding

black-headed pythons, a very desirable exotic pet with a market

Chapter 3 • a MusiCian Must Make MusiC 43

price ranging from $300 to $900. The pair has already had eight

babies and Josh plans to sell them.

Josh is now about to graduate from high school. He has earned his

Year 12 Certificate and achieved Certificate III in animal care,

which qualifies him for work with animals in industry. He also

writes much better now. “He used to do lines of application,” Peter

told me. “His recent proposal is 12 pages long and I had to ask him

for an executive summary.”

What turned Josh around? What changed a boy from failure in

school into a confident young entrepreneur?

It’s certainly not remedial intervention programs to help with his

academics—quite the contrary, it is the opportunity that allowed

Josh to find his passion and strength. Following his passion and

building on his strength, Josh flourished. He gained confidence

from his successes, from becoming great in his own way.

Human beings not only have the potential to be great in their own

unique way, but also need to be great in their own unique way.

They need to be great and relevant in order to be happy, to be

psychologically healthy, and to have a strong sense of self-worth.

Achieving greatness matters to mental well-being and psychologi-

cal health because it satisfies multiple innate needs: the need to

realize one’s full potential (Goldstein, 1995; Maslow, 1954; Rogers,

1961), the need for competency (White, 1959), the need for auton-

omy (Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985), and the need for relation-

ship (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).

SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND SELF-TRANSCENDENCE

Just like it is the nature of a tree to grow to its fullest potential, it

is the nature of humans to realize their full potential, which has

been commonly referred to as self-actualization by various psychol-

ogists over the past century (Goldstein, 1995; Rogers, 1961).

Abraham Maslow made the term a household word through his

works on human motivation in the 1950s.

44 reaCh for Greatness

Maslow places human needs on a hierarchy of five levels: physio-

logical needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem, and

self-actualization. In this hierarchy, lower-level needs must be sat-

isfied in order to pursue higher-level needs. For example, humans

need food, air, and water for physical survival, and thus these

needs must be met before they can pursue other needs. After phys-

iological needs are satisfied, humans are motivated by the need for

safety and security such as personal safety, financial security, and

health. With safety and security needs satisfied, we seek to meet

the needs for love and belonging in friendship, family, and inti-

mate relationships. Thereafter, the need for esteem, respect, and

recognition takes precedence. People want to be respected, recog-

nized, and esteemed by themselves and people with whom they

are associated.

The highest level of needs is self-actualization, the desire to realize

one’s full potential. A person is believed to have lots of potential

talents or competencies he or she could develop, but has not yet

had the opportunity to do so. When lower-level needs are met,

humans then have the desire (and opportunity) to uncover and

develop their hidden potentials. When these potentials are real-

ized, their need for self-actualization is gratified.

However, the need for self-actualization is fundamentally different

from lower-level needs. The lower-level needs are motivations to

reduce deficiency or to bridge the gap between the actual state of

the individual and the desired or optimal state. For example, a

person needs to maintain a certain level of sugar in his or her

blood and thus needs food. But after eating, and when the sugar

level in the blood is restored to its optimal state, the deficiency is

reduced. The need is satisfied and diminishes.

The need for self-actualization, however, is different. Unlike the

need for food, which diminishes after eating, the need for self-

actualization grows as it is being met. It follows a positive-

feedback loop. That is, when people uncover their hidden talents

and develop them, they want to further enhance them. The bet-

ter one becomes, the more he or she wants to get better. Thus, the

need for self-actualization can also be called the growth need

(Heylighen, 1992). The need to become better does not diminish.

Chapter 3 • a MusiCian Must Make MusiC 45

In other words, self-actualization is not a fixed state, but rather a

dynamic, ongoing process.

Self-actualization is key to ultimate psychological health. Only

when people’s profound capacities are actualized can they be truly

happy and healthy mentally or be at peace with themselves: “A

musician must make music; an artist must paint, a poet must write,

if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be,

he must be” (Maslow, 1954, p. 93).

Human motivation goes beyond self-actualization. In later life,

Maslow added another level of motivation: self-transcendence. At

this stage, people are motivated beyond the self. They “seek a ben-

efit beyond the purely personal and seek communion with the

transcendent, perhaps through mystical or transpersonal experi-

ences; they come to identify with something greater than the

purely individual self, often engaging in service to others” (Koltko-

Rivera, 2006, p. 306). In other words, the ultimate motivation

involves the desire not only to realize one’s potential, but more

importantly, to realize the potential for a purpose, for serving oth-

ers and the world (Maslow, 1996).

Self-transcendent individuals seek and have peak experiences in

which the self is lost, fused with the world, and integrated with

others. In these experiences, the individual becomes relatively ego-

less. As Maslow wrote:

As he [that is, the person in the peak experiences] gets to be

more purely and singly himself he is more able to fuse with

the world, with what was formerly not-self, for example, the

lovers come closer to forming a unit rather than two people,

the I-Thou monism becomes more possible, the creator

becomes one with his work being created, the mother feels

one with her child.

That is, the greatest attainment of identity, autonomy,

or selfhood is itself simultaneously a transcending of

itself, a going beyond and above selfhood. The person

can then become relatively egoless. (cited in Koltko-

Rivera, 2006, p. 304)

46 reaCh for Greatness

Empirical research has confirmed the universal needs proposed

by Maslow, although the exact arrangement of levels may not be

as strict as Maslow believed (Hofstede, 1984; Tay & Diener, 2011;

Wahba & Bridwell, 1976). For example, in some contexts and cul-

tures, a lower-level need does not have to be met before seeking to

satisfy higher-level needs. Nonetheless, the idea that human beings

need to realize their potential and find purpose for their potential

in service of others is generally accepted. The idea has been further

advanced with empirical evidence uncovered by positive psychol-

ogists in recent years.

COMPETENCY, AUTONOMY, AND RELATIONSHIP

To achieve self-transcendence is to achieve authentic happiness,

the state of peace with oneself. Authentic happiness comes from

using one’s “signature strengths and virtues in the service of some-

thing much larger than you are” (Seligman, 2002, p. 263). Thus, to

achieve authentic happiness, people need to first discover and

develop their potential into signature strengths and virtues

(Compton & Hoffman, 2012).

Recent research in positive psychology in general and self-

determination theory (SDT) in particular has contributed sig-

nificantly to our understanding of how humans are naturally

driven to pursue self-transcendence or authentic happiness. The

need to achieve authentic happiness is underpinned by three

innate psychological needs: the need for competence, the need

for relatedness, and the need for autonomy (Deci & Vansteenkiste,

2004; Ryan & Deci, 2000). These needs are fundamental to all

human beings. They are not learned but rather inherent. Thus,

they are universally found in all human beings, regardless of

culture, geographical location, gender, or race. They are like

physiological needs such as the need for food and air, which are

vital to the biological health of human beings.

The need for competence has to do with humans’ desire to effec-

tively deal with their environment and have an effect on it.

According to SDT, rather than being passively controlled by external

Chapter 3 • a MusiCian Must Make MusiC 47

forces, humans are inherently proactive and “have the potential to

act on and master both the inner forces (viz., their drives and emo-

tions) and the external (i.e., environmental) forces they encounter”

(Deci & Vansteenkiste, 2004, p. 23). In other words, human beings

desire to learn, to become better, to have mastery experiences. The

need for competence drives people toward situations that make

them feel competent and away from situations that deprive them of

the sense of being competent. Thus, the need for competence has

been found to be strongly associated with intrinsic motivation—

feedback, rewards, and communications that make people feel com-

petent enhance their intrinsic motivation. Moreover, while efforts

to increase competency by learning a new skill may initially be dif-

ficult and not necessarily enjoyable, increased competency led to

more happiness and satisfaction later (Compton & Hoffman, 2012).

The need for autonomy is the universal human “urge to be causal

agent, to experience volition, to act in accord with their integrated

sense of self (i.e. with their interests and values), and to endorse

their actions at the highest level of reflective capacity” (Deci &

Vansteenkiste, 2004, p. 25). In other words, human beings desire

to be autonomous, make their own decisions, and determine their

own acts. Autonomy, however, does not mean independence of or

isolation from others. They want a sense of “willingness and choice

when acting, whether the actions are independently initiated or

are in response to a request from significant others” (Deci &

Vansteenkiste, 2004, p. 25). The feeling of autonomy and a lack of

external coercion have been found to improve intrinsic motivation

(Pink, 2009). They also improve life satisfaction through improved

self-esteem, more satisfaction at work, increased persistence in

working toward goals, and decreased frequency in experiences of

boredom (Compton & Hoffman, 2012).

Additionally, SDT suggests that humans have the desire to experi-

ence relations with others, or “the need for mutually supportive

interpersonal relationships” (Compton & Hoffman, 2012, p. 44).

Every human has the “propensity to interact with, to connect to,

and experience caring for other people” (Deci & Vansteenkiste,

2004, p. 25). Simply put, all human beings want to belong, interact

with others, and be valuable to others. Similar to the effects of

48 reaCh for Greatness

competency and autonomy, relatedness has been found to be

closely associated with better psychological functioning and posi-

tive feelings or happiness. It is also related to improved motivation

in learning new skills.

According to positive psychologist Martin Seligman’s well-being

theory, having positive relations is fundamental to the well-being

of individuals. To live a fulfilling life, people need to have social

relationships with others that are mutually supportive. Equally

fundamental to psychological well-being is the need for accom-

plishment. A gratifying and fulfilling life is also dependent on a

sense of competency and mastery as well as goals and challenges

to strive for. In other words, human beings want more than simple

happiness. They yearn to flourish. They have the desire to develop

fulfilling relationships, have meaning in their lives, and master

something—the desire to become great.

GREATNESS: UNIQUE WITH PURPOSE AND VALUE

To be sure, the term “greatness” is not part of the psychological

literature in describing human needs and motivation. “Self-

actualization,” “self-transcendence,” “strengths and virtues,”

“growth,” “competence,” “flourishing,” and “mastery” are the

words and phrases commonly used to describe the universal

human tendency to become better and realize potential. The psy-

chological literature more often than not talks about the need for

self-transcendence and self-actualization, the desire for compe-

tency, and the urge for growth instead of the need for greatness.

While greatness is not explicitly stated, it is inherently implied.

Greatness, as discussed in Chapter 2, means having qualities and

abilities above the average, relative to others within a group. It

seems impossible to have everyone actually be great; however, as

previously discussed, if the group consists of only one member,

he or she is automatically great. Since there are no peers to com-

pare with, he or she is automatically peerless. Thus, to be unique

is to be great.

Chapter 3 • a MusiCian Must Make MusiC 49

Uniqueness is fundamental to the concept of human needs used in

humanistic psychology and positive psychology. Self-actualization,

for instance, is the realization of one’s unique potentials. It is about

becoming the best one can be. Likewise, positive psychologist

Martin Seligman’s discussion about strength and virtues is based

on the assumption that the strengths and virtues are personal—

unique to every individual. Similarly, in self-determination theory,

the need for competence is people’s own sense of improvement for

themselves and by themselves, instead of complying with external

standards or seeking standardized approval. It is entirely personal

and unique. Human beings thus can be said to have the need to be

great in their own way.

Humans not only have the intrinsic desire to grow, to become as

great as they can be, but also they are inherently driven to turn

their greatness into something valuable for others. They desire

relatedness. They want to be relevant. They yearn for belonging. To

construct and maintain positive social relationships, human

beings need to create value for others; be a worthy partner in rela-

tionships; and make unique contributions by discovering, develop-

ing, and contributing their unique talents. As a result, the desire

for relatedness or positive relationships serves as a powerful moti-

vator that drives people to work to become great.

Likewise, the innate human need for self-transcendence, to accom-

plish something beyond self-satisfaction, and to live a meaningful

life motivates people to become great. In order to satisfy the desire

for self-transcendence, people must achieve greatness first. At the

same time, striving to become great must be sustained by a desire

to serve a purpose. Without a bigger purpose, people can be stuck

living a life about their own material needs, or at the lower levels

on Maslow’s hierarchy.

THE NEED FOR GREATNESS: A SUMMARY

In summary, research in psychology shows that human beings, as

an organism, are born with the need to become great. The need is

50 reaCh for Greatness

natural and inherent, just like an acorn has the potential and ten-

dency to grow into a fully flourishing oak tree. It is not learned or

acquired from experiences or environments. However, experiences

and environments matter. When an acorn is deprived of water,

light, and nutrition, it may never become a healthy oak. Similarly,

when people are deprived of opportunities to become great, they

may never become what they could be. When their potential with-

ers, they cannot live a happy, flourishing life.

The need for greatness is a potent intrinsic motivator. Just like the

need for nutrition drives people into action to find food, the need

for greatness drives people to learn, better their skills, and improve

their abilities. More importantly, unlike the need for nutrition,

which decreases as the need is met, the need for greatness grows as

it is met. That is, there is no end to the need for greatness. The

more we learn, the more we want to learn.

The need for greatness is universal. It exists in every member of the

human species. It is not dependent on culture or other environ-

mental factors such as family backgrounds or socioeconomic situ-

ations. It is not defined by gender or height or other cognitive or

physical conditions. Every human being is endowed with the need

for greatness.

THE “MENTALLY UNSTABLE” KID WHO BECAME A GREAT PSYCHOLOGIST: AN EXAMPLE

It is difficult to imagine how someone who grew up in poverty

and hostility would become the psychologist who led the move-

ment to recognize the good side of humanity. Abraham Maslow,

the father of humanistic psychology, was born into a Jewish immi-

grant family in 1908. Maslow’s early life was miserable. His par-

ents, who emigrated from Russia, were uneducated and poor. His

father was often absent physically and emotionally, and he had a

mother whom he openly described as “schizophrenogenic,” “igno-

rant,” and “cruel” (Hoffman, 1988).

Chapter 3 • a MusiCian Must Make MusiC 51

He faced a hostile social environment outside the home. He was

persecuted and bullied by local anti-Semitic gangs because he was

a Jew, and he was diagnosed as “mentally unstable.” He dropped

out of law school after one year, but eventually he defied all of

those deficits and found his passion in psychology. He went on to

become one of the greatest psychologists of the 20th century

(Hoffman, 1988).

From a “mentally unstable” law school dropout to an eminent

psychologist, Maslow’s life exemplifies the idea that everyone has

potential, even though that potential may be overlooked, under-

valued, or even judged as abnormal by society. But Maslow is much

more than an example. He fundamentally challenged the psychol-

ogy of deficiency and shed light on the positive qualities of

humanity.

Maslow broke away from the psychological tradition of Sigmund

Freud. Instead of seeing the dark side of human nature and looking

for sickness in human psychology as Freudian psychologists did,

Maslow was optimistic about human nature. He saw the good and

positive side. Rather than studying psychological illness, he

devoted his life to studying the best and most positive aspects of

humanity. He gave birth to the movement that studies the pursuit

of happiness in psychology.

Chapter 4 • take Control 53

CHAPTER

4 Take Control

Personalizable Education for Greatness

The school that transformed Josh went through a similar trans-formation itself. Templestowe College, hidden in the eastern suburb of Melbourne, Australia, where plenty of high-performing

schools are located, went through ten years of continuous decline

in enrollment. When Peter Hutton took over as principal in 2009,

the school had fewer than 300 students (Preiss, 2014). It had a

horrible reputation and was about to be closed by the Victoria

government. Today, the school has become one of the most inno-

vative schools in Australia and most desirable schools in Melbourne,

with nearly 1,000 students enrolled.

The secret to this transformation is Take Control or TC, according

to Peter Hutton. He likes the clever play on the acronym of

Templestowe College so much that he now prefers people to call

his school TC instead of Templestowe College. He certainly did TC

of TC after he arrived at this failing school. Given its failing status,

54 reaCh for Greatness

it was relatively easy for him to take control and implement sweep-

ing changes. “Essentially their response was ‘do anything, do it

quickly and stop asking us,’” he was told by the teachers when he

asked them how to improve the school (Preiss, 2014).

The first thing he did was against conventional wisdom or typical

approaches to turning around a failing school. Instead of bringing

in more discipline, standards-based intervention, data walls, mon-

itoring of each student’s progress against curriculum standards, or

more homework and testing, Hutton started the transformation by

asking students to take control of their own learning.

One of the most important things in learning is what to learn. To

ask students to take control of their own learning should start from

granting students the opportunity to study what they want to

study, rather than imposing on them a curriculum predetermined

by others. Thus, shortly after his arrival at TC, Hutton conducted

a survey to ask the students what they would like to study if they

could study anything in the world. The overwhelming responses

were animals and computer game design. Hutton brought in game

design studies from a local university and created the animals pro-

gram. Now the school has a large animals room with all kinds of

reptiles, birds, and tropical fish and two large areas for chickens,

goats, and alpacas.

Over the years, the school has evolved a lot but the central theme

remains the same: encouraging students to take control of their

own learning. “Here they’re allowed to follow their passions and

interests and not just in a minor way,” Hutton told a reporter from

the Australian newspaper The Age. “They have total control, albeit

signed off by their parents, to pursue their passions” (Preiss, 2014).

For this purpose, TC has a “the default answer is yes” rule that says

any suggestion or proposal from any student, staff, or parent has

to be answered yes unless it negatively affects others or takes too

much time or money.

The dramatic transformation at Templestowe made it possible for

the transformation of Josh. It enabled children such as Josh to find

and develop their passions and strengths so they can become great

and feel valuable in their own way. This transformation is needed

Chapter 4 • take Control 55

in all schools in order to shift from an education aimed at fixing

deficits to one that supports and enhances strengths and passions

so that every child can be uniquely great.

UNDERLYING BELIEFS OF PERSONALIZABLE EDUCATION

Underlying the transformation at Templestowe is the idea of per-

sonalizable education. Letting students take control of their learn-

ing requires an education that is personalizable by students, not

prepersonalized for students. A personalizable education is care-

fully designed to encourage and enable students to create their

own personal educational experiences so as to explore, experiment

with, and enhance their passions and strengths.

Personalizable education is underpinned by a number of beliefs.

These beliefs are derived from current understandings of human

nature, the future of the world in which our children are going to

live, and the educational institutions we have today. Chapters 2

and 3 discussed the theories and research supporting these beliefs

in detail. These beliefs mark a fundamental departure from the

underlying assumptions of traditional education in a number of

significant ways.

all Children Can Become Great in their own Ways

As discussed in Chapter 2, each child has a unique jagged profile

of qualities, abilities, and knowledge due to the interaction

between nature and nurture. As a result, a child cannot be great in

all areas, but he or she cannot be weak in all areas, either. A child

is usually stronger in some areas and weaker in others. Traditional

education focuses on improving children’s weakness or fixing

their deficiency in areas deemed to be important by curriculum

standards, while ignoring or suppressing their strengths.

Personalizable education believes that all children can be great in

their unique ways and thus focuses on enhancing strengths

instead of fixing deficits.

56 reaCh for Greatness

An example is the legendary UK entrepreneur Richard Branson, the

“dyslexic and dunce at school” who became an entrepreneurial

legend with his Virgin Group (Branson, 1998, p. 19). His headmas-

ter told him on his last day at school that he would end up either

in prison or a millionaire. As one of the 100 greatest Britons,

Branson apparently fulfilled one of his headmaster’s predictions.

Not as legendary yet is Chelsey, a student from a rural Ohio school

who found her entrepreneurial passion and talent in a student-run

business started by teacher Mark Suter. Chelsey, born to an alco-

holic teenage mother and a father suffering from drug addiction,

lives with her grandparents and is not the best student in the tra-

ditional sense. “She is reclusive and intentionally avoids her peers

throughout the school day, and works as many hours as she can on

evenings and weekends at a home improvement store to not be at

home,” according to teacher Mark Suter. “I didn’t care about

school, it was just where I had to be when I wasn’t at work. I hated

it,” Chelsey told Mark. But then things began to change in her

senior year, when Mark invited Chelsey to do something awesome,

“like run-a-business-in-the-classroom awesome.” She joined Grit9,

a student-run web design business, via EdCorp, an education cor-

poration supported by RealWorldScholars, a San Diego–based non-

profit organization that supports entrepreneurship education in

classrooms. Chelsey talked about the change with Mark:

When I joined Grit9, it felt like I was part of something that

had meaning for me, it connects to the actual real world.

Now I’m sitting in other classes trying to glean what I can

from them that I can use beyond high school. I’ve never

looked at classes like that before. Even if I don’t like the class,

I’m looking to see what I can get out of it. Grit9 did that. It

made it all real. I want to get out of the rows of chairs, doing

the same thing as every other student. This is what I needed.

(M. Suter, personal communication)

all talents are Worth Developing

Not all talents were once economically valuable. In the Agricultural

Age and early Industrial Age, for instance, only a limited spectrum

Chapter 4 • take Control 57

of human talents had utilitarian value. Today, in the new age, a

majority of traditional routine tasks that required a homogenous

set of skills and knowledge are now performed by machines, and

human needs have shifted from basic needs to more psychological,

aesthetic, and intellectual needs thanks to the availability of more

leisure time and disposable income. Thus, the full spectrum of

human talents has become economically valuable (Pink, 2006;

Zhao, 2012). More importantly, in the coming Fourth Industrial

Revolution (Schwab, 2015) or Second Machine Age (Brynjolfsson

& McAfee, 2014), developing the full spectrum of human talents

has become a necessity in order for humans to compete with smart

machines. Thus, while traditional education believes that only a

limited spectrum of human talents (primarily academic abilities in

a few subjects such as language and math) is worth developing,

personalizable education must accept the idea that all human tal-

ents are worth developing.

all Children Want to Be Great and Create Value for others

Personalizable education emphasizes trust in students. They are

intrinsically motivated to improve, learn, and become great to

achieve self-actualization. They are also intrinsically motivated to

achieve purpose and to make genuine contributions to the world

beyond themselves. They want to be accepted, respected, and valu-

able to others. In other words, not only do they desire to become

great, but they also want to create value for others. They want to

matter. Josh and Chelsey are great examples—when they can do

something valuable to others, when they are allowed to create

value, when they feel respected and trusted, they flourish.

all Children are Capable of organizing their own learning

Personalizable education also follows the belief that all children

are capable of managing and organizing their own learning. Sugata

Mitra, one of the most prominent education scientists and a pro-

fessor at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, discovered

through his well-known Computer in the Wall project that even

58 reaCh for Greatness

children in the slums of India were able to learn and organize

learning with a computer connected to the internet, as he dis-

cussed in a TED Talk titled “Kids Can Teach Themselves” (Mitra,

2006, 2007). He has conducted further research and expanded his

experiment with self-organized learning in his School in the Cloud

project (Mitra, 2012; TEDTalks, 2011). While it is almost common

sense that children can learn on their own, this belief is virtually

forgotten in traditional education.

FEATURES OF PERSONALIZABLE EDUCATION

Personalizable education is to encourage and enable students to

take control of their own learning or build their own learning

enterprise, as I wrote in my 2012 book World Class Learners:

Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (Zhao, 2012). To

make education personalizable is not to let students do whatever

they like whenever they like. Instead, personalizable education is

carefully designed and thoughtfully implemented. High-quality

personalizable education should include a set of defining features:

agency, shared ownership, flexibility, and value creation.

agency

A key feature of personalizable education is student agency. In

order for students to explore, identify, and enhance their strengths

and follow their passions, they must become the owners of their

learning. They must have agency in designing their own learning,

or, as exemplified in Templestowe College, they must take control

of their own learning.

The degree of student agency varies. An easy way to think about

the degree of agency a student enjoys in a school is the percentage

of total school and school-related time being decided by students:

that is, the proportion of time devoted to activities decided by

students in consultation with adults. Traditionally, most schools

require students to follow a curriculum that has been tightly pre-

scribed, giving students no choice at all. At best, students can have

Chapter 4 • take Control 59

some agency over how to spend their recess time and all time

after school. In some education systems, even students’ time

after school is prescribed by education with homework and tutor-

ing on school subjects. In these cases, the percentage of time over

which students can have agency is no more than 10 percent.

While in no school can students have complete control over what

they do due to resource constraints and concerns for others, the

amount of time over which students can have agency can be

increased significantly. For example, in Summerhill School in

England and other democratic schools, students can decide what

classes to attend, if at all, and in what activities they want to

engage in a class. They have almost total control over how to

spend their time in school as long as they follow the rules, which

they have participated in making. In these schools, the percentage

of time over which students can have agency would be more than

90 percent.

At Templestowe, the amount of agency is lower because of govern-

ment requirements. As a government school, Templestowe must

follow the curriculum sanctioned by the state government of

Victoria and the federal government of Australia. It also needs to

take into consideration requirements for college admissions.

However, the school tried to maximize student agency. For exam-

ple, it abolished year levels or grades that typically force students

to study subjects prescribed based on biological age. This action

allows students to choose from a much broader set of subjects that

were previously out of reach because of their grade level. The

school also actively solicits student suggestions for courses and

projects. As a result, at Templestowe, students probably can decide

about what they do for more than 70 percent of their time.

The amount of agency students can have over their time can be

used as a quick measure of the personalizability of education. The

higher the percentage of time students can control, the more per-

sonalizable the education is. The more personalizable the educa-

tion, the more likely it is that students can develop their passions

and strengths and become great. Schools wishing to teach for great-

ness can begin their work on increasing the amount of time over

60 reaCh for Greatness

which students can have agency. Teachers can also work to increase

the amount of control students can have in classes. Table 4.1 is a

general guideline about the amount of time over which students

have control and the quality of personalizable education.

Students’ agency can vary in the different aspects of their educa-

tion as well, some more consequential than others, while any

kind of agency is better than no agency at all. For example,

allowing students to decide which after-school club they want to

join is not as consequential as enabling them to decide what

classes they want to take in terms of supporting students pursu-

ing their strengths and passions. Likewise, granting students

freedom in choosing the color of their pencils is not nearly as

consequential as letting them choose which books they want to

read in a language class. Allowing students to decide what they

can wear to school is perhaps not as consequential as allowing

them to develop their courses.

Student agency can be granted on different levels. At the highest

level, students can make decisions about their learning without

constraints of grade levels, age, compulsory courses, or compulsory

activities. Students can decide what they want to study, when they

want to study it, and how they demonstrate their learning out-

comes. They can choose to take tests or not, such as in Summerhill

School. A lower level of agency can happen at the grade level. That

Table 4.1 student agency and Quality of personalizable education

Amount of School-Related Time Over Which Student Has Control

Quality of Personalizable Education

90% and above Outstanding (Level V)

70% to 89% Excellent (Level IV)

50% to 69% Good (Level III)

30% to 49% Needs Improving (Level II)

Below 30% Poor (Level I)

Chapter 4 • take Control 61

is, students are still grouped based on age and are given a group of

courses they must take for a given grade, but they can choose what

courses to take. Agency can also be granted in a course, where

teachers can allow students to suggest topics and learning materi-

als, decide forms of assessment, and decide the pace of progress.

shared ownership

Another defining feature of personalizable education is shared

ownership. Adults and students in a school are co-owners of the

school and what happens in the school. Shared ownership is a way

for students to have agency over their educational experiences by

being able to contribute to and take responsibility for the culture,

infrastructure, and resources in a school. Moreover, in a shared

ownership school, students are not only concerned about their

own interests but also the interests of others and the community

as a whole.

Shared ownership is a form of broad-based ownership that has

been proposed as an effective way to achieve a healthy and equita-

ble community, business development, and job creation (Blasi,

Freeman, & Kruse, 2014; Kelly, Dubb, & Duncan, 2016). In recent

years, there is growing recognition of the benefits of employee-

owned businesses and community-owned institutions such as

banks and grocery stores (Alperovitz, 2005; Blasi et al., 2014; Kelly

et al., 2016). Research suggests that broad-based ownership leads to

healthier and more balanced growth and development as well as

more equity.

In education, shared ownership has rarely been practiced. In tra-

ditional education, the school is owned and thus governed by

adults. In the majority of schools worldwide, students have little

ownership of the most important elements of the institution

where they spend the majority of their time and are the very

reason for which the institution exists. The curriculum is owned

by the adults, as are the facilities, the rules, the activities and

events, and the books in schools.

Shared ownership means shared responsibility. Personalizable

education is not only about student agency, but also about

62 reaCh for Greatness

student responsibility. Students, when granted the right to take

control, are simultaneously expected to accept the responsibility

of their actions and decisions. Not only are they expected to live

with the consequences on themselves but also with those on oth-

ers and the school.

Shared ownership should be established for all aspects of a school

related to students’ educational experiences. Of course, the first is

the curriculum. In personalizable education, while students have

the right to craft their own education experiences guided by their

strengths and passions, their choices of courses and other learning

activities are rooted in what is offered in the school. Thus, what is

offered in a school is a community asset that affects everyone in

the community. Students and adults, as co-owners, should bear the

responsibility for increasing the quality and quantity of this com-

munity asset with their own contributions.

Including students in curriculum committees is an effective strat-

egy that has worked well in Templestowe College. Curriculum

committees or subcommittees are bodies that make decisions

about curriculum matters: what courses are offered, when, by

whom, and so on. They also review the current offerings and

survey students regarding courses that need to be removed or

added or improved. It is very important to ensure that students

are not just a token on the committee. The students should have

equal rights as adults, and their opinions should count as much

as the adults’.

A school’s physical environment and facilities such as the library

and classrooms are also important community assets that affect

everyone. Students should play an active role in improving the

environment and facilities. They should also be substantively

involved in decisions about their uses. Templestowe’s library does

not have an adult librarian. Students own the space, but they have

rules and are encouraged to bring books from home.

Another important asset in schools that affects everyone is the

soft environment or culture of the school. Students should be

actively involved in making and enforcing rules that govern

the conduct of members of the entire school community, just like

Chapter 4 • take Control 63

they do in democratic schools such as Summerhill. Furthermore,

students should play a significant role in strategic planning, mis-

sion development, and major events that have an impact on

school culture.

Shared ownership does not happen only at the school level. It can

happen at the course level as well. For example, Beijing Academy,

a new secondary school in Beijing, China, changed the ownership

of field trips into shared ownership. The school makes extended

culture study trips to distant places an important component of its

education. Previously, the adults owned these trips; they planned

where to go, how to get there, where to stay, and what to do. They

bore all the responsibilities for all issues related to the trip: budget-

ing, safety, and content. Later, they asked students to develop and

defend their proposed trips before a committee of adults and stu-

dents. Students and adults thus share the ownership and, as a

result, responsibilities. The trips became much easier to organize

and of higher quality.

It is impossible for all students to participate in all decision making

directly, especially in large schools. A representative democracy

perhaps works better than a direct democracy in school settings.

Instead of involving all students in all decisions, schools can estab-

lish committees, with representatives elected by students. Election,

rather than appointment by adults, is very important to shared

ownership because it does make all students feel they are part of

the process. Of course, with today’s technology, schools can con-

sult students and parents directly through social media or websites.

Students can directly vote on large issues as well.

To ensure shared ownership, schools should have bylaws that

clearly describe how students can participate in the governance of

the school, how they can contribute to the school, and in what

areas they can participate. Schools should also have infrastructures

that support shared ownership, such as election days, election

offices, and mechanisms for soliciting and acting on proposals

from students. Perhaps a school can offer a course about shared

ownership as a way to teach democracy and citizenship through an

authentic experience.

64 reaCh for Greatness

flexibility

Personalizable education must have flexibility as a defining feature.

In order to maximize room for personalization, a school needs

to have maximal flexibility in response to new opportunities,

emerging needs, and unexpected problems. Flexibility applies to all

aspects of the school: leadership, timetable, curriculum, facilities,

students, and staffing.

Flexibility is first of all a mindset. A flexibility mindset believes in

the value of change and that plans, no matter how carefully

thought out, will always have unexpected disruptions and/or out-

comes that require change. This is particularly true with students’

learning plans. A student plans to take a course, for example, but

discovers that he or she is not as interested in it as expected at

some point. Instead of sticking to the original plan, he or she

should perhaps leave the course or negotiate with the teacher for

new content. The same can be true with a school project. Students

may discover that they do not have the resources or skills to com-

plete the project as planned. Instead of viewing it as a failure,

schools with the flexibility mindset would consider it a great learn-

ing opportunity by suggesting to the students that they spend time

acquiring the needed resources or skills. It is also possible that

while studying a course or doing a project, the students discover

new interests and opportunities that are more worthy of pursuing.

Flexibly minded people should abandon the old course or project

and pursue the newly discovered.

To support the flexibility mindset, a school needs a culture that

does not look at change as bad, poor planning, or a waste of time.

The leadership and adults should view change as normal and

expected. After all, learning is about change; it is about discovering

passions and strengths. Flexibility needs to be codified in school

rules. For example, a school can have a rule that says students can

change their minds about courses three times per term.

To enable personalizable education, schools need to have flexibil-

ity built in other areas. Courses do not need to be all the same

length. Some can last one week, others 18 weeks. Physical facilities

need to be flexible as well. Not all rooms are of the same size. Not

Chapter 4 • take Control 65

all desks are arranged the same way. Not all technology should be

of the same kind. Not all courses have to be taught by staff; stu-

dents and/or community members can lead some.

Increasing flexibility requires educators to rethink what schools

and classrooms have always been. We are often constrained by

what already exists without questioning why it existed. For exam-

ple, many educators feel constrained by timetables and schedul-

ing, but timetables and scheduling were created for education.

They can be reimagined. Perhaps Fridays can be student-driven

learning days, for example. Innovative educators have reimagined

how to increase flexibility by flipping the classroom or creating

genius hours. Redesigning physical spaces may be too costly, but

changing how spaces are used is not. Turning libraries into mak-

erspaces changes the uses without redoing the physical building,

for example.

Value Creation

Personalizable education has another defining feature: value cre-

ation. Personalizable learning is not only about supporting stu-

dents’ pursuit of their passions and strengths through agency,

shared ownership, and flexibility, but also about guiding students

in turning their passions and strengths into something valuable.

By creating something valuable, students find purpose in their

learning and put in efforts to enhance their strengths. They don’t

just learn from others, they learn for others as well.

Product-Oriented Learning (POL), first proposed in my book World

Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (Zhao,

2012), is an effective pedagogical approach to support value cre-

ation. POL, or entrepreneurial project-based learning, has three

basic elements: it creates authentic products, it has a sustained and

disciplined process, and it is strength-based. First, all learning is

aimed at producing works that have a genuine purpose and audi-

ence. Learning does not begin with a textbook or predetermined

sequence of knowledge and skills. Instead, it starts with identifying

problems worth solving. The outcome is not a test score, com-

pleted worksheets, or an essay to be read by the teacher. Instead, it

66 reaCh for Greatness

is a meaningful product, service, or program that solves a problem

for someone. It can be an art piece that someone can proudly hang

on a wall in his or her office. It can also be a musical performance

at a community event. It can also be soap or candles that people

would buy. Of course, it can also be a course that a student teaches

to other students or staff.

Authentic works need to be of high quality, and high quality

comes from sustained and disciplined efforts. Thus, POL requires

students to go through multiple rounds of reviewing and revi-

sion, a process of learning to improve the product and develop a

growth mindset. In POL, students seek feedback from their peers,

teachers, potential users of their works, and professionals outside

the school. Based on the feedback, they develop more knowledge

and skills needed to improve their works. Then, they revise and

improve.

Being strength-based is about guiding students to discover and

develop their strengths and passions. It is also about discovering

and avoiding their weaknesses. Furthermore, by helping students

to find and develop their strengths, POL teaches students to dis-

cover other people’s strengths and collaborate with them. True

collaboration is based on trading strengths and outsourcing

weaknesses. Unlike traditional project-based learning that asks

students to do similar things, POL suggests that members of a

team perform different tasks and be responsible for different

aspects of the project.

POL is designed for students to be engaged in creating value for

others with their strengths, passions, and efforts. To successfully

implement POL requires schools and teachers to have support

structures and programs that help students identify problems

worth solving, develop products, and make their products avail-

able to audiences within and outside of the school. Templestowe,

for example, has a program that awards start-up funds to students

through a competitive process. Real World Scholars, a U.S.-based

non-profit organization that promotes entrepreneurship educa-

tion, has created an online marketplace for student products that

enables classes to sell their products globally.

Chapter 4 • take Control 67

Effective POL also requires schools and teachers to have clearly

written guidelines that describe the processes and procedures for

reviewing and revising proposals and products. The guidelines

typically include information about how students can initiate a

project, where they can get help about their idea, and how their

idea can be realized, as well as information about collaboration—

finding weaknesses and strengths in each other and seeking collab-

oration with other students to improve their products.

PERSONALIZABLE EDUCATION VERSUS PERSONALIZED LEARNING

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in personalized learn-

ing. Personalized learning has been advocated as an effective way

to address the different needs of students in education. However,

personalized learning, together with its variations such as person-

alized instruction, customized learning, and personalized educa-

tion, has become almost meaningless. Worse, it has been hijacked

by commercial interests as a sales pitch to market products that do

not deliver a highly mechanized education or as a euphemism for

products and approaches aimed at fixing the deficits of learners

judged to be “slow” and “poor” by standardized tests.

Personalizable education is fundamentally different from personal-

ized learning, individualized learning, differentiated instruction,

or customized education in a number of ways.

fixing Deficits Versus enhancing strengths

Personalized learning is about fixing students’ deficits. It is based

on the outdated assumption that all students can and should learn

the same thing, even if they need to learn at different speeds or

perhaps in different ways. Thus, personalized learning is about

helping students catch up with others or accelerate their progress

to meet predetermined standards.

In contrast, personalizable education is about enhancing students’

strengths and supporting their passions. It is rooted in the belief

that all children have the potential and need to become great.

68 reaCh for Greatness

Every child has a unique profile of strengths and passions that are

worth developing and supporting. Every child also has weaknesses

that need to be “forgiven.” If a child is not interested in or good at

something, it should be avoided.

process Versus outcome

Personalizable education emphasizes the personalization of out-

comes. It encourages and supports each and every student to dis-

cover and develop his or her unique jagged profile of knowledge,

skills, and other qualities such as passions and dispositions. It

affords students the resources and opportunities for them to

explore and experiment with their interests and talents so as to

identify and enhance their strengths. The personalization is at the

outcome level. In other words, personalizable education supports

students being different from each other in what they know and

are able to do.

In contrast, personalized learning, individualized learning, and

customized learning, as they are commonly practiced today, are

often about the process of learning. The outcome is predeter-

mined, typically, by graduation requirements or curriculum stan-

dards. Students are allowed to vary only in where, when, or how

fast they want to learn, but they are not allowed to decide what

they want to learn. The expected outcome is that all students mas-

ter the same set of knowledge and skills. Thus, personalized learn-

ing usually happens within a particular course such as math or

English. This is especially true in the currently most popular form

of personalized learning—learning systems or platforms delivered

or assisted by technology. This form of learning offers limited

choices at very low levels such as pace, place, or timing.

to Versus By

Personalized learning is almost an oxymoron because it suggests

someone has done the personalization already for students. It is a

great example of Henry Ford’s famous saying, “Any customer can

have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”

(Ford & Crowther, 1922, p. 72). Although personalized learning

Chapter 4 • take Control 69

and/or differentiated instruction advocates the idea of giving stu-

dents choices, the choices are often predetermined based on pre-

conceived theory and/or big data collected from other learners.

The choices are also often limited to known patterns of learning

derived from previous experiences. While students may have some

agency in the process, their actions are restricted to what is offered

by the personalized learning system or instructional practices.

Personalizable education assumes students are the agents of per-

sonalization. It is the students who control their education. The

personalization is carried out by the students, under guidance from

adults such as teachers, counselors, and parents.

SUMMARY

All children have the potential and need to become great. To help

each child achieve his or her full potential, we need an education

that starts from the child’s passions and strengths, instead of pre-

scribed skills and content. Children are born learners. They want

to and are able to take control of their learning. As adults, we need

to create an education that supports and helps children to take

control of their education, to make education personalizable. A

personalizable education gives back to students the agency of

learning; makes them co-owners of the education institution; is

flexible so as to accommodate changes and individual needs; and

has a strong culture that celebrates value creation so students can

learn to use their passions, strengths, and efforts to serve the world

beyond themselves.

Chapter 5 • trust Me 71

CHAPTER

5 Trust Me

Realizing Personalizable Education

“Trust me,” was the answer I got when I asked Chris Aviles about what’s needed to support innovation in schools. Chris works at the Fair Haven School District in New Jersey. He has

a cool title: the 21st Century Skills, Technology, and Innovation

Coordinator. Unlike titles such as eighth-grade math teacher or

tenth-grade English teacher, which immediately tell what a person

does or at least give a stereotypical impression of the job, Chris’s

title does not. So I asked him what he does in his job. “What is

right for my kids,” Chris told me.

I approached Chris for an interview because he is a celebrated

teacher innovator. Chris has received kudos from various institu-

tions and people; for example, he was one of the five Emerging

Leaders recognized by the International Society for Technology in

Education (ISTE) in 2016 and one of the top thirty Technologists,

Transformers, and Trailblazers in education recognized by the

72 reaCh for Greatness

Center for Digital Education in 2015. His innovative teaching has

been covered by local newspapers and shared in national and

international conferences.

The innovation programs and projects he initiated are great exam-

ples of teaching for greatness. Chris was a high school English

teacher at Barnegat High School in New Jersey. “Six years into his

career, Chris decided he was done with the traditional model of

school and it was time to shake things up,” writes Chris on his

popular website Teched Up Teacher (www.techedupteacher.com).

“Chris stopped whole class instruction and started blending.” This

was just the beginning. Later, he brought video games to his class

and, in fact, turned his classroom into a video game. He started the

Be About It Project, a yearlong project that allowed the students to

take action on their passions, in his English class in 2013–2014. At

the beginning of the year, Chris gave his students the project with-

out any prescription. “What they did for this project was totally up

to them,” reflected Chris. “They could do whatever they want,

with whoever they want, whenever they want, however they

want” (Aviles, 2014). The only requirement was that the students make a presentation on stage to everyone about what they did. As

long as they did that, all the students got an A, regardless of the

content or quality of the project. He wanted to give students the

opportunity to pursue their passion, to do something they might

have always wanted to do, to “not just talk about it, be about it”

(Aviles, 2014). The project was a great success and written up by

the media. Chris also started a student-run news show, Bengal Buzz,

that enabled students to tell their stories of the school.

Chris was recruited to Fair Haven for his innovative teaching and

given the cool title. At Fair Haven, he runs the Fair Haven

Innovates program, a districtwide program for fourth to eighth

graders. Among others, the Fair Haven Innovates program includes

the Innovation Lab, a blended-learning shared space for fourth

and fifth graders to “make for others,” where students can design

their own projects and pursue challenges about which they are

passionate. It also includes the FH Gizmos, a student-run business

that sells the products they make. Students are in charge of every

aspect of running the business, from bookkeeping to marketing,

Chapter 5 • trust Me 73

from customer service to designing and developing new revenue

streams, and deciding what to do with the profits. Seventh and

eighth graders also run businesses.

Chris is among the many educators I have come across around the

world who have begun the much-needed transformation in educa-

tion from transmitting prescribed knowledge to cultivating stu-

dents’ passions and supporting their strengths. Mark Suter, a

teacher in rural Ohio, developed an innovative after-school pro-

gram that runs as a business enterprise. His students designed

websites and other digital products for real clients. Mark turned his

classes into global businesses where students are engaged in mak-

ing and selling real products. Mark won the Henry Ford’s

Innovation Nation Teacher Innovator Award in 2015 for his work.

Ashley Greenway, an elementary school teacher in Georgia,

founded the student-run business Sugar Kids Beauty in her first-

grade class. Kids made beauty scrubs and sold them online. For her

work, Ashley received the 2016 Allen Distinguished Educator

Award. And of course, there is Peter Hutton, the principal who

transformed Templestowe College in Australia, and Larry

Rosenstock, founder of High Tech High.

However, the large number of innovative educators does not

change the fact that today’s education, by and large, is entrenched

in the old paradigm, focused on fixing deficits, and mired in the

broken phony meritocracy (Zhao, 2016b). We know where edu-

cation needs go, and many have proven it can be done, so why

doesn’t our education change in the right direction? I asked

Chris and others the question, What did you need to become

innovative?

“Trust me” was the response.

FORCES AGAINST PERSONALIZABLE EDUCATION

“Trust me” is a cry for autonomy and respect. Just like students

who need agency, autonomy, and trust to be genuinely motivated

to do great work, educators need the same to do great work and to

74 reaCh for Greatness

innovate. But just like students who don’t enjoy a great deal of

agency and autonomy in schools, educators have not had much

freedom to be innovative, either.

It may appear that a principal runs a school, but in reality, the

school is run by many forces—governments, higher education

institutions, examination boards, testing companies, publishers,

educational technology companies, and a host of other tradi-

tional educational institutions and stakeholders. It is the same for

teachers. It seems that a teacher enjoys total freedom in a class-

room, but all the external forces that influence schools also

occupy the classroom.

These outside forces work, intentionally or unwittingly, to perpet-

uate the traditional education paradigm, or are perceived to do so,

for a wide range of reasons. Some forces stand to benefit from such

perpetuation and actively resist any meaningful change. Some feel

they have no choice but to go along. Others may desire change,

but the changes they make actually lead to strengthening the tra-

ditional paradigm. Whatever the reason, the world has actually

seen the traditional paradigm further fortified in recent years.

Centralization, standardization, and mechanization are the hall-

marks of recent education reforms aimed at closing the achieve-

ment gaps in countries that used to allow more autonomy at the

local, school, and teacher level. These countries include the

United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Education in

these countries used to be held up as the poster child of educa-

tion that produces happy and well-developed children, as well as

creative and entrepreneurial talents who come up with the most

scientific discoveries, technological inventions, and great works

in the humanities and arts, especially for countries that have

traditionally had a tightly controlled education system. Education

in these latter countries remains highly standardized, central-

ized, and mechanized, despite their efforts to make drastic

changes (Zhao, 2015).

As a result, educators around the world today work in a tightly

controlled environment that gives them very little freedom or

incentive to deviate from tradition and make education more

Chapter 5 • trust Me 75

personalizable. The majority of educators have to follow a curric-

ulum or curriculum standards centrally prescribed by their

governments. They are held accountable to produce centrally

prescribed outcomes, often through tests. They are expected by

parents to ensure that their students achieve excellent results in

qualification exams for colleges and/or work.

To produce the prescribed outcomes, educators are asked to follow

standardized approaches. There are plenty of companies and

experts to supply “evidence-based” products and services, ranging

from standardized instructional methods and materials, personal-

ized learning platforms, assessment tools, professional training,

and data-analyzing tools to monitor students’ progress. These

products and services are often marketed as ways to improve

results, which are defined as student performance on standardized

tests. Thus, they further perpetuate the traditional paradigm, forc-

ing educators to be unwilling partners along the way.

Centrally prescribed curricula and outcomes (as test scores) and

standardized approaches make education more mechanical and

less human. Teachers are asked to do more direct instruction

and follow prescribed textbooks and standards-based pacing

guides. They are also asked to assess students with standardized

tools frequently and monitor every student’s progress. And when-

ever a deviation is detected, they are told to deliver intervention.

Data—really, test scores—turn education into the mechanical

transmission of discrete information, rather than a long journey of

cultivating the growth of humans.

In a nutshell, there are so many outside forces that shape the edu-

cational experiences of students that educators are rendered

merely a messenger, a deliverer of prepackaged standardized expe-

riences for all students, just like a FedEx delivery person whose

only responsibility is to make sure the box reaches its intended

recipient. In many ways, with so many outside forces defining

education under the pretense of being educational experts, the

educators in front of the students become the only ones who do

not know education, according to some policymakers. Thus, they

have to be told what to do all the time.

76 reaCh for Greatness

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

But education does not have to be like this, and it should not. As

numerous education innovators have demonstrated, education

can be changed. It can be made personalizable so as to help each

and every student actualize his or her potential and become great.

To turn pockets of success demonstrated by the courageous and

innovative educators, who have done it regardless of the con-

straints, into a full paradigm shift for all children requires the

actions of everyone involved.

Governments

Governments need to retreat from overgoverning. They are

responsible for the quality of education, but overgoverning does

not lead to better education. The role of the government should be

about input instead of outcomes. Governments should worry

about ensuring funding and equitable opportunities in education

for all children, rather than prescribing the same outcomes and

pathways for all students.

The best (and perhaps easiest) action governments should take is

to get away from determining what, when, and where all stu-

dents should be taught. They should stop efforts to develop

national or statewide curricula, standards, or textbooks and

mandate all schools and teachers to teach accordingly. They

should stop using scores on standardized tests to evaluate teach-

ers and schools as well.

Instead, governments should invest in educational innovations.

Education is a future-oriented enterprise, but ironically, it is always

backward looking. Governments always encourage scaling up past

practices instead of cultivating future practices. To change the sit-

uation, they should work on incentivizing educators and schools

to experiment with new educational approaches.

education Businesses

Businesses are after profit. Education is a huge business and many

profit from it. Those who profit from education by supporting

Chapter 5 • trust Me 77

and servicing the traditional education paradigm are logically

unwilling to abandon their currently profitable products and ser-

vices. But history has taught us that it pays to pay attention to

the future, especially in the face of revolutionary changes. The

horseshoe makers who insisted on making horseshoes and

resisted the coming of automobiles did not make nearly as much

profit as those who abandoned their horseshoes and joined the

auto industry.

Education faces a revolution. It is thus advisable for education

businesses—publishers, testing companies, educational technology

startups, consulting firms, and so on—to eye the future or, better

yet, help create the future. It would be even better if businesses, out

of their concern for the future of the world and all children, ceased

making products that are harmful to children and started creating

products and services that support the great transformation toward

personalizable education.

parents and the public

We know that parents and the public are genuinely concerned

about the future of their children and communities. But for a vari-

ety of reasons, they have not necessarily been the strong advocates

for personalizable education that they should and could. Some of

them may not be aware of the reasons for the fundamental change.

They may not see or care about the damages of traditional educa-

tion on children, or they may believe that some collateral damages

are necessary to succeed in a meritocracy. Some of them may not

believe the future will require different talents and abilities, and

thus change is needed. Some of them may be aware of the changes

but are unwilling to push for them for fear of putting their chil-

dren at risk of losing the competition in the current game of edu-

cation. Some may want the change but feel powerless before the

giant of the traditional education empire.

Parents and the public can become better informed of the reasons

for change. Schools and governments can play a significant role in

this endeavor, as can the media and education scholars. More

importantly, those parents and public citizens who understand

78 reaCh for Greatness

the need for change can actually change public policy. They

should be more active in advocating for the changes with their

votes and the public discourse.

higher education

Higher education has always been one of the major forces that

shapes K–12 education in three significant ways. First, its admis-

sions requirements have had a defining influence on what and

how schools teach because preparing students to enter higher

education has been an important, if not exclusive, mission of

many schools. Second, higher education prepares the workforce

for schools. What kind of educators—teachers and administrators

of schools—higher education prepares can significantly affect the

educational experiences of students. Third, higher education insti-

tutions also are the largest producers of educational research and

researchers. While educational research in general has not had

sweeping influence in educational policies and practices, its influ-

ence cannot be underestimated.

Thus, higher education needs to change as well. It should change

its admissions requirements and procedures, as well as become

more personalizable. Educator preparation should also change in

order to prepare educators to lead personalizable education.

Furthermore, educational research should be more concerned

about how to invent personalizable education instead of focusing

on how to improve the outdated education paradigm.

educators

To be sure, not all educators are equally willing and able to shift

toward personalizable education. Despite all the constraints placed

on them, if they are courageous and capable, they can still inno-

vate. As has been demonstrated by the many education innovators

around the world, changes are possible, even in the most tightly

controlled places.

Personalizable education requires teachers to develop different

qualities from what is required in traditional teaching. As the role

of the teacher shifts from the primary or sole source of knowledge

Chapter 5 • trust Me 79

and instruction to one that mentors, coaches, and supports indi-

vidual growth of students in a community, a certain set of qualities

becomes more important than knowledge of content and peda-

gogy (Zhao, in press). In an upcoming chapter for the Handbook on

Teaching and Learning (Hall et al., in press), I suggest a set of quali-

ties important for teachers to have in order to support personaliz-

able education.

Ability to identify strengths and passions. In personalizable education,

it is believed that every student has strengths and passions. The

child cannot be defined by prescribed standards or standardized

tests. It is the teacher’s responsibility to help each child explore

and identify his or her strengths. Therefore, teachers must have the

ability to look beyond the weaknesses and find strengths in stu-

dents, as well as to create opportunities for students to develop

their strengths and encourage them to follow their passions.

Ability to inspire and challenge. In personalizable education, every

student is assumed to be exceptional in his or her own way.

Teachers need to hold high expectations for all students. Thus,

teachers should have confidence in their students and make that

confidence known to them. In other words, teachers should have

the ability to inspire great confidence in their students. They can

motivate and challenge their students to tackle difficult tasks and

persevere in the face of setbacks.

Empathy and emotional intelligence. Empathy is the ability to iden-

tify and understand others’ feelings and situations. In personaliz-

able education, students are considered individual human beings

with diverse experiences and backgrounds. Teachers need empa-

thy and emotional intelligence in order to reach each and every

unique student and help him or her grow. Teachers can identify

with students and understand their passions, motivations, con-

cerns, worries, hopes, and expectations from the students’ per-

spectives instead of imposing their own perspectives and feelings

on their students.

A broad and long-term perspective of education. In personalizable edu-

cation, teaching is more about the development of human quali-

ties than the immediate acquisition of knowledge. It thus requires

80 reaCh for Greatness

teachers to have a broad perspective of education, focusing more

on long-term educational outcomes than short-term instructional

outcomes (Zhao, 2016a). They pay more attention to educating the

whole child than transmitting the content.

Management and leadership skills. In personalizable education, teach-

ers need to move beyond classroom management. Teachers need to

manage many student projects, monitor individual learning plans

and pathways for each student, and lead product-oriented learning

communities. Thus, teachers should have an extensive set of man-

agement and leadership skills that includes planning, communica-

tion, delegation, evaluation, and motivation.

Resourcefulness and collaboration. Teaching in personalizable educa-

tion may not require as much knowledge of content and pedagogy

in the traditional sense, but it does require teachers to be much

more resourceful. They need to become informed of opportunities,

tools, and other resources that can be made available to students,

and they need to be able to identify, scrutinize, and organize these

resources. Moreover, teachers need to be able to help students learn

to develop and manage their own learning. Furthermore, when

teaching as a community, teachers need to have strong abilities to

work with their colleagues and experts outside the school.

SUMMARY: GARDEN VERSUS NATURE RESERVE

Traditional education is like gardening in which only those spe-

cies deemed to have the qualities of a beautiful garden are culti-

vated, while those species that are deemed not as beautiful are

purged as early as possible. There were good reasons to make

schools gardens because not all talents and passions were valuable

plants that contributed to the beauty of the garden. But today, the

world has changed. As people gradually recognize the value of

biodiversity for environmental sustainability and productivity,

protecting every species in an ecosystem has become increasingly

accepted. Instead of purging some species and cultivating others,

as in a garden, nature reserves have become increasingly popular

Chapter 5 • trust Me 81

practices. Hopefully, education will soon make a similar shift,

transforming gardens into nature reserves.

A word of caution is needed. Teaching for greatness does not mean

pigeonholing students into a profession or vocation at a young

age. It is not about only teaching to students’ strengths or interests.

It is really about a broad and flexible education for students to

explore, experiment with, and enhance their strengths and passions.

It is about not focusing on fixing their deficits as determined by

external standards and tests.

83

References

Allen, A. (2011). Michael Young’s The rise of the meritocracy: A philosophical

critique. British Journal of Educational Studies, 59(4), 367–382.

Alperovitz, G. (2005). America beyond capitalism: Reclaiming our wealth, our

liberty, and our democracy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2010). Early warning: Why reading by the end of

third grade matters. Retrieved from http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/

AECF-Early_Warning_Full_Report-2010.pdf

Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2013). Early warning confirmed: A research update

on third grade reading. Retrieved from http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/

AECF-EarlyWarningConfirmed-2013.pdf

Aviles, C. (2014, June 13). Don’t just talk about it . . . Retrieved from http://

www.techedupteacher.com/dont-just-talk-about-it/

Bailey, D. H. (2014, November 13). What’s the point of teaching math in pre-

school? Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/whats-the-

point-of-teaching-math-in-preschool/

Bailey, M. J., & Dynaski, S. M. (2011). Inequality in postsecondary educa-

tion. In G. J. Duncan & R. J. Murnane (Eds.), Whither opportunity? Rising

inequality, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 117–132). New York/

Chicago: Russell Sage Foundation/Spencer Foundation.

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for

interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.

Bilger, B. (2013, April 22). The Martian chroniclers: A new era in planetary

exploration. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/

2013/04/22/the-martian-chroniclers

Blasi, J. R., Freeman, R. B., & Kruse, D. (2014). The citizen’s share: Reducing

inequality in the 21st century (Paperback ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press.

Branson, R. (1998, September 11). “At school I was dyslexic and a dunce.”

The Times (London), p. 19.

84 Reach foR GReatness

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress,

and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. New York: Norton.

Carter, P. L., & Welner, K. G. (Eds.). (2013). Closing the opportunity gap: What

America must do to give every child an even chance. New York: Oxford

University Press.

CBS News. (2016, June 26). Garrison Keillor signs off. Retrieved from http://

www.cbsnews.com/news/garrison-keillor-signs-off/

Celarent, B. (2009). The rise of the meritocracy, 1870–2033 by Michael Young.

American Journal of Sociology, 115(1), 322–326.

Clark, L. (2014, November 5). My daughter, my beautiful failure. Retrieved

from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/05/my-

daughter-my-beautiful-failure

Clark, L. (2016). Beautiful failures: How the quest for success is harming our

kids. Sydney, Australia: Penguin Random House Australia.

Collins, N. (2012, October 8). Sir John Gurdon, Nobel Prize winner, was “too

stupid” for science at school. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

news/science/science-news/9594351/Sir-John-Gurdon-Nobel-Prize-

winner-was-too-stupid-for-science-at-school.html

Collins, R. (1979). The credential society: An historical sociology of education

and stratification. New York: Academic Press.

Compton, W. C., & Hoffman, E. (2012). Positive psychology: The science of

human flourishing (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Coyle, D. (2009). The talent code: Greatness isn’t born. It’s grown. Here’s how.

New York: Bantam.

Cross, B. E. (2007). Urban school achievement gap as a metaphor to conceal

U.S. apartheid education. Theory Into Practice, 46(3), 247–255.

Curran, F. C., & Kellogg, A. T. (2016). Understanding science achievement gaps

by race/ethnicity and gender in kindergarten and first grade. Educational

Researcher, 45(5), 273–282. doi:10.3102/0013189X16656611

Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in

human behavior. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E. L., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2004). Self-determination theory and

basic need satisfaction: Understanding human development in positive

psychology. Ricerche di Psichologia, 27(1), 23–40.

Deresiewicz, W. (2015). Excellent sheep: The miseducation of the American elite

and the way to a meaningful life. New York: Free Press.

Duncan, G. J., & Murnane, R. J. (Eds.). (2011). Whither opportunity? Rising

inequality, schools, and children’s life chances. New York/Chicago: Russell

Sage Foundation/Spencer Foundation.

RefeRences 85

Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset: The new psychology of success (Trade pbk. ed.).

New York: Ballantine.

Every Student Succeeds Act, Pub. L. No. 114-95 §114 Stat. 1177 (2015–2016).

Fallows, J. M. (1989). More like us: Making America great again. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin.

Florida, R. (2012). The rise of the creative class: Revisited (2nd ed.). New York:

Basic Books.

Ford, H., & Crowther, S. (1922). My life and work. New York: Garden City

Publishing.

Franklin, B. (1780). The deformed and handsome leg. In The papers of

Benjamin Franklin (Vol. 34). Retrieved from http://franklinpapers.org/

franklin//framedVolumes.jsp

Fryer, R. G., & Levitt, S. D. (2004). Understanding the Black-White test score

gap in the first two years of school. Review of Economics and Statistics,

86(2), 447–464.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New

York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple intelligences: New horizons (Rev. and updated ed.).

New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H., & Hatch, T. H. (1989). Multiple intelligences go to school:

Educational implications of the theory of multiple intelligences.

Educational Researcher, 18(8), 4–10.

Geschwind, D. H. (2008). Autism: Many genes, common pathways? Cell,

135(3), 391–395. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2008.10.016

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success (Large print ed.). New York:

Little, Brown.

Gleason, D. L. (2017). At what cost? Defending adolescent development in

fiercely competitive schools. Raleigh, NC: Lulu Press.

Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits.

American Psychologist, 48(1), 26–34.

Goldstein, K. (1995). The organism: A holistic approach to biology derived from

pathological data in man. New York: Zone Books.

Hall, G. E., Quinn, L. F., & Gollnick, D. M. (Eds.). (in press). Handbook on

teaching and learning. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Hess, F. M. (2011, Fall). Our achievement-gap mania. Retrieved from https://

www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/our-achievement-gap-mania

Heylighen, F. (1992). A cognitive-systemic reconstruction of Maslow’s the-

ory of self-actualization. Behavioral Science, 37(1), 39–58.

Hoffman, E. (1988). The right to be human: A biography of Abraham Maslow.

New York: St. Martin’s.

86 Reach foR GReatness

Hofstede, G. (1984). The cultural relativity of the quality of life concept.

Academy of Management Review, 9(3), 389–398.

Hoorens, V. (1993). Self-enhancement and superiority biases in social com-

parison. European Review of Social Psychology, 4(1), 113–139. doi:10

.1080/14792779343000040

Jones, L. (2013). Minding the gap: A rhetorical history of the achievement gap.

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Louisiana State University, Baton

Rouge. Retrieved from http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-05312013-

084246/unrestricted/Dissertation.20Jun13.pdf

Kaus, M. (1992). The end of equality. New Republic Books/Basic Books.

Kelly, M., Dubb, S., & Duncan, V. (2016). Broad-based ownership models as

tools for job creation & community development: A guide to how community

development is using broad-based ownership models to help low- and moderate-

income communities. Retrieved from http://democracycollaborative

.org/content/broad-based-ownership-models-tools-job-creation-and-

community-development

Koltko-Rivera, M. E. (2006). Rediscovering the later version of Maslow’s

hierarchy of needs: Self-transcendence and opportunities for theory,

research, and unification. Review of General Psychology, 10(4), 302–317.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2007). Pushing past the achievement gap: An essay on

the language of deficit. Journal of Negro Education, 76(3), 316–323.

Lemann, N. (2000). The big test: The secret history of the American meritocracy.

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper.

Maslow, A. H. (1996). Critique of self-actualization theory. In E. Hoffman

(Ed.), Future visions: The unpublished papers of Abraham Maslow

(pp. 26–32). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mitra, S. (2006). The hole in the wall: Self-organising systems in education. New

York: McGraw-Hill.

Mitra, S. (2007, July 17). Kids can teach themselves [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_

themselves

Mitra, S. (2012). Beyond the hole in the wall: Discover the power of self-organized

learning [Kindle version]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/

Beyond-Hole-Wall-Discover-Self-Organized-ebook/dp/B0070YZSFQ/

ref=la_B001KCZLKQ_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500419170&sr=1-1

Morrison, H. (2013, December 1). Pisa 2012 major flaw exposed. Retrieved

from https://paceni.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/pisa-2012-major-flaw-

exposed/

Nichols, S. L., & Berliner, D. C. (2007). Collateral damage: How high-stakes test-

ing corrupts America’s schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

RefeRences 87

Nichols, S. L., & Berliner, D. C. (2008). Testing the joy out of learning.

Educational Leadership, 65(6), 14–18.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107–110, §115, Stat.

1425 (2002).

Ostashevsky, L. (2016). More than five years after adopting Common Core,

Kentucky’s black-white achievement gap is widening—Now the state is roll-

ing out new ideas for closing it. Retrieved from http://hechingerreport

.org/five-years-adopting-common-core-kentuckys-black-white-achievement-

gap-widening/

Palca, J. (2012, August 3). Crazy smart: When a rocker designs a Mars lander.

Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2012/08/03/157597270/crazy-

smart-when-a-rocker-designs-a-mars-lander

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2007). Framework for 21st century

learning. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/

frameworkflyer_072307.pdf

Pink, D. H. (2005, May). Why the world is flat. Retrieved from https://www

.wired.com/2005/05/friedman-2/

Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future.

New York: Riverhead.

Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New

York: Riverhead.

Plucker, J. A., Hardesty, J., & Burroughs, N. (2013). Talents on the sidelines:

Excellence gaps and America’s persistent talent underclass. Retrieved from

http://webdev.education.uconn.edu/static/sites/cepa/AG/excellence

2013/Excellence-Gap-10-18-13_JP_LK.pdf

Preiss, B. (2014, September 7). Templestowe school is a class of its own. Retrieved

from http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/templestowe-school-in-a-

class-of-its-own-20140906-10c6tp.html

Reardon, S. F. (2011). The widening academic achievement gap between

the rich and the poor: New evidence and possible explanations. In

G. J. Duncan & R. J. Murnane (Eds.), Whither opportunity? Rising inequal-

ity, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 91–116). New York/Chicago:

Russell Sage Foundation/Spencer Foundation.

Reiss, S. (2000). Who am I? The 16 basic desires that motivate our behavior and

define our personality. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Reiss, S. (2004). Multifaceted nature of intrinsic motivation: The theory of

16 basic desires. Review of General Psychology, 8(3), 179–183.

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture: Genes, experience, and what makes us

human. New York: HarperCollins.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

88 Reach foR GReatness

Rose, T. (2016). The end of average: How we succeed in a world that values same-

ness. New York: HarperOne.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facil-

itation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.

American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.

Sanders, J. L. (2009). Qualitative or quantitative differences between

Asperger’s disorder and autism? Historical considerations. Journal of

Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(11), 1560–1567.

Schwab, K. (2015, December 12). The fourth Industrial Revolution: What it

means and how to respond. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved from https://www

.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-12-12/fourth-industrial-revolution

Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychol-

ogy to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York: Free Press.

Sen, A. (2000). Merit and justice. In K. Arrow, S. Bowles, & S. Durlauf (Eds.),

Meritocracy and economic inequality (pp. 5–16). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Smith, J. M., & Kovacs, P. E. (2011). The impact of standards-based reform

on teachers: The case of “No Child Left Behind.” Teachers and Teaching:

Theory and Practice, 17(2), 201–225.

Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Needs and subjective well-being around the

world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 354–365.

TEDTalks. (2011, May 25). Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education. Retrieved

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tedtalks/sugata-mitra-the-child-

dr_b_708043.html

Tienken, C. H., & Zhao, Y. (2013). How common standards and standard-

ized testing widen the opportunity gap. In P. L. Carter & K. G. Welner

(Eds.), Closing the opportunity gap: What America must do to give every

child an even chance (pp. 113–122). New York: Oxford University Press.

Toegel, G., & Barsoux, J. L. (2012). How to become a better leader. MIT Sloan

Management Review, 53(3), 51–60.

Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times.

San Francisco: Wiley.

Vickers, A. J., & Kent, D. M. (2015). The Lake Wobegon effect: Why most

patients are at below-average risk. Annals of Internal Medicine, 162(12),

866–867.

Wagner, T. (2008). The global achievement gap: Why even our best schools don’t

teach the new survival skills our children need—and what we can do about

it. New York: Basic Books.

Wagner, T. (2012). Creating innovators: The making of young people who will

change the world. New York: Scribner.

RefeRences 89

Wahba, M. A., & Bridwell, L. G. (1976). Maslow reconsidered: A review

of research on the need hierarchy theory. Organizational Behavior and

Human Performance, 15(2), 212–240.

Wang, G. (2017, June 3). Ta 16 Sui Kaoru Hagongda Zhuanyan Shuxue 20 Duo

Nian Hou Fangqi Rujin Shenghuo Nan Zili (He Entered Harbin Institute of

Technology at 16, After Doing Math Research for More Than 20 Years and

Gave Up Can Barely Make a Living Today). Retrieved from http://www

.yangtse.com/jiaoyu/2017-06-03/1261940.html

White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence.

Psychological Review, 66(5), 297–333.

Wong, V. C., Wing, C., & Martin, D. (2016, Spring). Do schools respond to

pressure? Evidence from NCLB implementation details. Paper presented

at Lost in Translation: Building Pathways From Knowledge to Action,

Washington, DC. Evanston, IL: Society for Research on Educational

Effectiveness.

World Economic Forum. (2016). The future of jobs: Employment, skills and

workforce strategy for the fourth Industrial Revolution. Retrieved from

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf

Young, M. D. (1959). The rise of the meritocracy, 1870–2033: The new elite of

our social revolution. New York: Random House.

Young, M. D. (2001, June 28). Down with meritocracy, commentary. Retrieved

from http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

Zhao, Y. (2009). Catching up or leading the way: American education in the age

of globalization. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Zhao, Y. (2012). World class learners: Educating creative and entrepreneurial

students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Zhao, Y. (2015). Lessons that matter: What we should learn from Asian school

systems. Retrieved from http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/reports/

lessons-that-matter-what-should-we-learn-from-asias-school-systems/

Zhao, Y. (2016a). Counting what counts: Reframing education outcomes.

Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Zhao, Y. (2016b). From deficiency to strength: Shifting the mindset about

education inequality. Journal of Social Issues, 72(4), 716–735.

Zhao, Y. (in press). Rethinking teacher quality in the age of smart machines.

In G. E. Hall, L. F. Quinn, & D. M. Gollnick (Eds.), Handbook on teaching

and learning. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

91

Index

Abilities

deemed meritorious, 21

discovering, 6

overestimating, 26

passion and, 30 (figure)

and R-Directed Thinking,

33 (table)

See also Assets; Growth mindset;

Strengths

Above average, 26–31, 29 (table)

Accomplishment, need for, 48

Accountability, 75

Achievement gap, 2–4, 5, 8. See

also Attainment, educational

Agency, 58–61, 60 (table), 69

Allen, A., 19

Alperovitz, G., 61

Assessments, 2, 17–18

for determining interests, 36

Assets

ignoring, 2. See also Deficit

approach; Deficit mindset

See also Abilities; Growth

mindset; Strengths

Attainment, educational, 19–20.

See also Achievement gap

Autism, 38–40

Autonomy, 43, 46, 47, 73–74

Average

above, 26–31, 29 (table)

assumptions about, 26–27

jagged profiles, 28

Aviles, Chris, 71

Bailey, D. H., 3, 23

Barsoux, J. L., 34

Baumeister, R. F., 43

Be About It Project, 72

Beautiful Failures (Clark), 16

Beauty, finding, 1

Beijing Academy, 63

Berliner, D. C., 3

Big Five Model, 34, 34 (table)

Bilger, B., 25

Blasi, J. R., 61

Blended learning, 72

Branson, Richard, 56

Bridwell, L. G., 46

Brynjolfsson, E., 57

Burroughs, N., 3

Business, 72–73. See also

Entrepreneurship

Carter, P. L., 4

Annie E. Casey Foundation, 3

Celarent, B., 19

Center for Digital Education, 72

Centralization, of education,

74–75

Challenge, 79

92 Reach foR GReatness

Change, 73, 77–78

and value of skills/knowledge,

8–9

Checkpoints, 2

Chelsey (student), 56

China

Beijing Academy, 63

education in, 6

Great Cultural Revolution, 5

Liu, 11–14, 18

Ma, 23–24

transformation in, 8

Choice, 58–59, 68–69. See also

Agency

Citizenship, 63

Clark, Lucy, 15–16, 18

Classes, control in, 60

Coercion, 47

Cognitive/talents domain, 31–33

Collaboration, 66, 80

College, 78

College admission, 15

Collins, N., 19, 25

Community, 37–38

Competence, 43, 46–47

Compliance, 17, 18

Compton, W. C., 46, 47

Computer in the Wall project, 57

Conduct, 62–63

Control

in classes, 60

of schools, 74–75

taking, 53–69. See also

Education, personalizable

See also Agency

Coyle, D., 9

Creativity, 38

Cross, B. E., 4

Crowther, S., 68

Culture, of school, 62–63, 64

Curran, F. C., 3

Curriculum, 75

constraints of, 7

measuring children against,

17–18

in personalizable

education, 62

Deci, E. L., 43, 46, 47

Deficit approach, 1–2. See also

Weaknesses

Deficit mindset, for minority

students, 4. See also

Weaknesses

Deficits

fixing too early, 24, 39

focus on in personalized

learning, 67

See also Weaknesses

Democracy, in school settings,

59, 63

Deresiewicz, W., 14

Desire, 35–36 (table)

Diener, E., 46

Dreams. See Passions

Dubb, S., 61

Duncan, G. J., 3

Duncan, V., 61

Dweck, C. S., 5

Dynaski, S. M., 3

EdCorp, 56

Education

assumptions underlying, 8

broad and long-term perspective

of, 79–80

in China, 5, 6

deficit approach in, 1–2

effects of NCLB on, 3–4

goal of, 3

Index 93

greatness and, 9. See also

Greatness

ignoring assets in, 2

need for change in, 9

need for transformation in, 73

standardization, of, 74–75

Education, personalizable

agency in, 58–61, 69

curriculum in, 62

educators and, 78–80

features of, 58–67

flexibility in, 64–65

focus on strengths/passions,

67–68

forces against, 73–75

personalization of outcomes, 68

vs. personalized learning, 67–69

realizing, 76–80

shared ownership in, 61–63

shared responsibility in, 61–62

trust in, 71–81

underlying beliefs of, 55–58

value creation in, 65–67

Educational attainment, 19–20.

See also Achievement gap

Education businesses, 76–77

Educators

autonomy for, 74

personalizable education

and, 78–80

Einstein, Albert, 21

Emotional intelligence., 79

Empathy, 79

Entrepreneurship, 41–43, 56,

66, 72–73

Environment, school,

62–63

Environments, 50

Ethnicity

deficit mindset and, 4

gaps and, 2, 3

See also Privilege

Every Student Succeeds

Act (ESSA), 4

Exams. See Tests

Excellent Sheep, The

(Deresiewicz), 14

Expectations

of greatness, 26, 28

high, 25–26

Experiences, 6–7, 9, 36–37, 50

Facilities, 62

Fadel, C., 9

Failure, 15–16, 22

Fair Haven Innovates, 72

Fair Haven School District, 71, 72

Fallows, J. M., 19

Family, potential and, 37

Feedback, 66

Field trips, 63

Flexibility, 64–65

Florida, R., 9

Ford, Henry, 68

Fourth Industrial Revolution, 57

Franklin, Benjamin, 1

Freeman, R. B., 61

Freud, Sigmund, 51

Fryer, R. G., 3

Gap mindset, 2. See also

Achievement gap

Gardner, Howard, 9, 28, 31–33,

32 (table)

Gates, Bill, 14

Geschwind, D. H., 38

Gladwell, Malcolm, 5–6

Gleason, David, 14–15

Goldberg, L. R., 34

Goldstein, K., 43

94 Reach foR GReatness

Good, finding, 1

Governments, and personalizable

education, 76

Grade retention, 2

Grades, 18

Greatness, 9

beliefs about, 22

curtailed by education, 13

definition of, 26

desire for, 57

domains of, 31

expectations of, 26, 28

and interaction of qualities, 30

need for, 43, 48, 49–50

potential for, 31–38

Greenway, Ashley, 73

Grit9, 56

Growth mindset, 5–6

Gurdon, John, 25

Hall, G. E., 79

Handbook on Teaching and

Learning (Hall), 79

Handsome, 2

Happiness

authentic, 46

pursuit of, 51

Hardesty, J., 3

Hatch, T. H., 31, 32 (table)

Hess, F. M., 3

Heylighen, F., 44

Higher education, 78

Hoffman, E., 46, 47, 50, 51

Hofstede, G., 46

Hoorens, V., 26

Hutton, Peter, 41, 42, 43,

53–54, 73

Immigrant children, 36–37

Income, 2, 3, 19, 20. See also

Privilege

Innovation

freedom for, 74

supporting, 71

Inspire, 79

Intelligences, multiple, 28–29,

31–33, 32 (table)

Interests

assessments for determining, 36

discovering, 6

merit and, 21

suppression of, 17

See also Assets

International Society for

Technology in Education

(ISTE), 71

Intervention, 39, 40, 43

Jagged profiles, 28, 29 (figure),

29–31, 55, 68

Jobs, 19–20

Jobs, Steve, 14

Jones, L., 4

Josh (student), 41–43

Kaus, M., 19

Keillor, Garrison, 26, 27

Kellogg, A. T., 3

Kelly, M., 61

Kent, D. M., 27

“Kids Can Teach Themselves”

(Mitra), 58

Knowledge, 8–9, 36–37

Koltko-Rivera, M. E., 45

Kovacs, P. E., 3

Kruse, D., 61

Ladson-Billings, G., 4

Lake Wobegon Effect, 26–27

L-Directed Thinking, 33

Leadership skills, 80

Learning

Index 95

blended learning, 72

personalized learning, 67–69

process of, 68

project-based learning, 66

Project-Oriented Learning,

65–67

student management of, 57–58

Leary, M. R., 43

Left-brain-directed thinking, 33

Lemann, N., 19

Levitt, S. D., 3

Liu, Hanqing, 11–14, 18

Ma, Jack, 23–24

Management, 80

Martin, D., 3

Maslow, Abraham, 43–44, 45,

50–51

Math, 23–24

McAfee, A., 57

Mechanization, of education,

74–75

Mediocrity, 18–22

Merit, 18–22

Meritocracy, 18, 73, 77

effects on students, 22

logic of, 19

mediocrity and, 20

schools as, 19

standardized tests and, 20

use of school to

implement, 19

Minority students

deficit mindset and, 4

gaps and, 2, 3

See also Privilege

Mitra, Sugata, 57–58

Morrison, Hugh, 21

Motivation, 43, 45, 50

intrinsic, 47

need for, 49

Murnane, R. J., 3

“My Daughter, My Beautiful

Failure” (Clark), 15–17

National Merit Scholarship

Program, 20

NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act),

2, 3–4

Needs, 35, 43, 44, 46

Nichols, S. L., 3

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB),

2, 3–4

Opportunities, 7, 19–20, 37–38

Ostashevsky, L., 3

Outcomes, prescribed, 75

Outliers (Gladwell), 5–6

Overdiagnosis, 27

Ownership, shared, 61–63

Pace, 2

Palca, J., 25

Parents, 77–78

Partnership for 21st Century

Skills, 9

Passion/intrinsic domain, 35

Passions, 22, 35–36 (table)

ability and, 30, 30 (figure)

assessments for determining, 36

beliefs about, 22

curtailing, 16–18

focus on, 66, 67

greatness and, 9

identifying, 79

pursuing, 11–14

suppression of, 17–18

victimizing of, 22

Personality domain, 34

Personalized learning, 67–69

Physical domain, 31

Pink, Daniel, 9, 33, 47, 57

96 Reach foR GReatness

Plucker, J. A., 3

POL (Product-Oriented

Learning), 65–67

Potential

curtailed by education, 13–18

looking for, 36

need to realize, 43–46

privilege and, 15

Practice, 5–6

Prairie Home Companion, A

(radio program), 39

Preiss, B., 53, 54

Privilege

and curtailing potential, 15

merit and, 21

pursuing talents/passions and, 18

See also Income; Race/ethnicity

Problems, identifying, 65

Process of learning, 68

Product-Oriented Learning (POL),

65–67

Profiles, jagged, 28, 29 (figure),

29–31, 55, 68

Project-based learning, 66

Psychological health, 45

Psychology, 51

Psychology, humanistic, 49

Psychology, positive, 46, 48, 49

Public, 77–78

Purpose, 45–46, 49, 57

Qualities, 28

Race/ethnicity

deficit mindset and, 4

gaps and, 2, 3

See also Privilege

R-Directed Thinking, 33, 33 (table)

RealWorldScholars, 56, 66

Reardon, S. F., 3

Reiss, Steven, 35

Relatedness, 43, 46, 47–48, 49

Relationships, 37–38, 49

Relevance, 56, 65–67

Remediation, 43

Resourcefulness, 80

Resources, potential and, 37

Respect, need for, 73–74

Responsibility, shared, 61–62

Ridley, M., 9

Right-brain-directed thinking, 33

Rogers, C. R., 43

Rose, T., 9, 28

Rules, 62–63

Ryan, R. M., 43, 46

Sanders, J. L., 39

School culture, 62–63, 64

School environment, 62

Schools, control of, 74–75

Schools, democratic, 59, 63

Schwab, K., 9, 57

Second Machine Age, 57

Self-actualization, 43–45, 49, 57

Self-determination theory (SDT),

46, 49

Self-transcendence, 45–46, 49

Seligman, M. E. P., 46, 48, 49

Sen, A., 19

Sheep, excellent, 14, 18

Skills, 8–9, 36–37

Smith, J. M., 3

Sorting, 2

Spaces, rethinking, 65

Standardization, of education,

74–75

Standardized tests, 2, 19, 20, 21

Standards, 2, 36, 75

Steltzner, Adam, 24–25

Strengths

assessments for determining, 36

beliefs about, 22

Index 97

focus on, 8, 66, 67

greatness and, 9

identifying, 79

See also Abilities; Passions;

Talents

Students

management of learning by,

57–58

meritocracy’s effects on, 22

minority students, 2, 3, 4

trust in, 57

Success, defining, 17–18

Summerhill School, 59, 63

Superiority, illusionary,

26–27

Suter, Mark, 56, 73

System, 18

Take Control (TC), 53–55

Taking control, 53–69.

See also Education,

personalizable

Talents

ability and, 30

beliefs about, 22

deemed meritorious, 21

diversity of, 9

merit and, 22

suppression of, 17–18

value of, 8–9, 56

See also Abilities; Passions;

Strengths

Tay, L., 46

Teachers

autonomy for, 74

personalizable education and,

78–80

Teched Up Teacher, 72

Technology, and personalized

learning, 68

TED Talk, 58

Templestowe College, 41–43,

53–55, 58, 59, 62, 66, 73

Test preparation, 3, 20

Tests, 18

norm-referenced, 20

standardized, 2, 19, 20, 21

Test scores, 19, 75

Thinking, 33

Tienken, C. H., 4

Toegel, G., 34

Tracking, 1–2

Transformation, education’s

need for, 73

Trilling, B., 9

Trips, 63

Trust, 71–81

in students, 57

Uniqueness, 48–49

Value, of talents/skills, 8–9, 56

Value creation, 65–67

Vansteenkiste, M., 46, 47

Vickers, A. J., 27

Virgin Group, 56

Wagner, T., 9

Wahba, M. A., 46

Wang, G., 11

Weaknesses, 8, 55. See also Deficit

approach; Deficit mindset;

Deficits

Wealth

educational attainment

and, 20

gaps and, 2

See also Privilege

Well-being theory, 48

Welner, K. G., 4

White, R. W., 43

Wing, C., 3

98 Reach foR GReatness

Wong, V. C., 3

Works, authentic, 65–67

World Class Learners

(Zhao), 58, 65

World Economic Forum, 9

Young, Michael, 18, 19

Zhao, Y., 4, 9, 57, 58, 65,

73, 74, 79, 80

Zuckerberg, Mark, 14

To order your copies, visit corwin.com/leadership

Debbie Silver & Dedra Stafford Equip educators to develop resilient and mindful learners primed for academic growth and personal success.

Simon T. Bailey & Marceta F. Reilly On providing a simple, sustainable framework that will help you move your school from mediocrity to brilliance.

Peter Gamwell & Jane Daly A fresh perspective on how to nurture creativity, innovation, leadership, and engagement.

Lyn Sharratt & Beate Planche A resource-rich guide that provides a strategic path to achieving sustainable communities of deep learners.

Steven Katz, Lisa Ain Dack, & John Malloy Leverage the oppositional forces of top-down expectations and bottom-up experience to create

an intelligent, responsive school.

Peter M. DeWitt Meet stakeholders where they are, motivate them to improve, and model how to do it.

Edie L. Holcomb Use data to construct an equitable learning environment, develop instruction, and empower effective PL communities.

To order your copies, visit corwin.com/leadership

Leadership that Makes an Impact

Also Available

Charlotte Danielson Harness the power of informal professional conversation and invite teachers to boost achievement.

Eric Sheninger Use digital resources to create a new school culture, increase engagement, and facilitate real-time PD.

Liz Wiseman, Lois Allen, & Elise Foster Use leadership to bring out the best in others— liberating staff to excel and doubling your team’s effectiveness.

Russell J. Quaglia, Michael J. Corso, & Lisa L. Lande Listen to your school’s voice to see how you can increase engagement, involvement, and academic motivation.

Michael Fullan, Joanne Quinn, & Joanne McEachen Learn the right drivers to mobilize complex, coherent, whole-system change and transform learning for all students.

CORWIN HAS ONE MISSION: to enhance education through

intentional professional learning.

We build long-term relationships with our authors, educators,

clients, and associations who partner with us to develop and

continuously improve the best evidence-based practices that

establish and support lifelong learning.

Helping educators make the greatest impact

Solutions you want. Experts you trust. Results you need.

Contact an account manager at (800) 831-6640 or visit www.corwin.com for more information.

Author Consulting On-site professional learning with sustainable results! Let us help you design a professional learning plan to meet the unique needs of your school or district. www.corwin.com/pd

Institutes Corwin Institutes provide collaborative learning experiences that equip your team with tools and action plans ready for immediate implementation. www.corwin.com/institutes

eCourses Practical, flexible online professional learning designed to let you go at your own pace. www.corwin.com/ecourses

Read2Earn Did you know you can earn graduate credit for reading this book? Find out how: www.corwin.com/read2earn