Do ya want a former student on your jury?

This is a TED talk from earlier this year and posted last week.
 It lays out Dr. Wagner's basic premise for his book, Creating Innovators.

I'm still wrestling with innovation today. BTW-Thanks to Chad and Ellie for their comments to the last post. Its summer and most of us teacher types are 'off duty' but, for me, its the best time to unpack ways I can be a better teacher. I would love to hear from more of my teacher friends, parents and former students. Part of this blog is for me to process thoughts and part of it is to hear the thoughts of teachers, parents and student whom (or is it who--where is a grammarian when you need one?) I look up to and admire.

As I read Dr. Wagner's book, I'm also watching the embedded video and reading his blog. On the blog he asks if we should add a second criteria to what we want to help our charges 'be' when they graduate. College ready makes sense. His addition, however, is jury ready. Here is the premise he creates:

 "Imagine, for a moment, that you were accused of a serious crime that you did not commit, and you were on trial for your life. How confident would you be of getting a fair trial if the members of your jury had merely met the intellectual standards of our “college-prep” courses as they exist today? Certainly they would know how to memorize information and perform on multiple choice and short answer tests. But would your jurors know how to analyze an argument, weigh evidence, recognize bias (their own and others), distinguish fact from opinion, and be able to balance the sometimes competing principles of justice and mercy? Could they listen with both a critical mind and a compassionate heart and communicate clearly what they understand? Would they know how to work with others to seek the truth?"

-taken from Wagner's blog based on an article in Education Week (11 Jan. 2006)

So my question today is: are our students both college and jury ready? What are we intentionally doing to make them more jury ready? What could/should we do better?

Again, I would love your comments. You can join the blog to comment or post on my Facebook page and I will copy and paste. I triple double dog dare you to think and respond!