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In 2020, more than 2 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 will drop out of high school. In 1954, Bob Woodson was one of them. Like the millions of students who each year leave the education system without a high school diploma, he saw no point in continuing to spend his days in the classroom. Instead of graduating from high school, Bob Woodson enlisted in the Air Force, earned a GED, and graduated from Cheney University before completing his master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
It took Joe Ricketts seven years to complete his college education, balancing the demands of education, work, and a growing family while having to interrupt his studies regularly while working to pay for his tuition. I had to.
We both questioned the many values of our school days, wondering what the point of the lessons was and how we could prepare ourselves to succeed in life and career. , through experience, realized that a better type of education is possible.
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This is why after following very different life paths, we, white entrepreneur philanthropists and black civil rights leaders, are pursuing our common goal of transforming education. .
The first challenge educators face is engaging students. If students are not enthusiastic, they are not learning. As countless documentaries, textbooks, and lectures have shown, it is too easy to create materials that excite their creators and meet all learning criteria, but fail to engage young people and, worse, It cannot provide a foundation for long-term learning success as a learner or as a professional.
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Through the Woodson Center, Woodson creates the Black History and Excellence curriculum, drawing on the best of the past to help shape America’s future.
Lessons spotlight lesser-known historical figures, celebrate black excellence, discourage victim culture, and explore America’s founding, including self-determination, equality, resilience, and opportunities to build ourselves. Meet the millions of black people who have thrived by embracing the values of Pass and become your own uplifting agent.
The sooner students see living examples of what is possible even under the most dire circumstances, the sooner those possibilities begin to shape their choices and help them maximize their educational opportunities. .
Through the Opportunity Education Foundation, Ricketts advocates for active, proactive, skills-based learning where students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning.
Opportunity Education has created a wealth of teacher resources and a suite of innovative technology tools to enable teachers to tap into the intrinsic interests of their students.
Over the past six months, our two organizations have worked together to implement the Woodson Center curriculum using an engagement-focused, active learning approach advocated by Opportunity Education. The goal of this initiative is to provide students everywhere with the opportunity to actively explore with curiosity and joy the work of great Americans such as Crispus Attucks, Biddy Mason, Elijah McCoy and Bessie Coleman. and at the same time develop essential skills that can propel them forward in the world. future.
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While Black History Month provides a natural opportunity to discuss this collaboration, we hope these stories will help inspire students of all races and classes to succeed. These stories should not be confined to his month, but they should be celebrated throughout the year and over the years as students grapple with U.S. history.
This approach to history focuses on solutions rather than problems and aims to show that: Examples of American successvarious individuals actively explored ways to face the challenges of the day head-on, blaze new trails, and create a lasting legacy of inspiration.
The sooner students see living examples of what is possible even under the most dire circumstances, the sooner those possibilities begin to shape their choices and help them maximize their educational opportunities. .
Stories like these are inspiring, but learning them only as a series of facts only scratches the surface of what education is all about. The course is imperfect at best. After all, anyone with a common smartphone could find that information right away.
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Exploring the achievements of these individuals in depth is what creates truly transformative learning. It’s a quest to uncover the skills these historical figures used to achieve their success. True education is the development of such skills. These include the skills needed to navigate life situations, the skills students will need in the future, and most importantly, the skills to ask questions that have yet to be answered.
Skills such as how to conduct research, how to formulate questions, how to analyze information, how to separate feeling from truth, and how to construct persuasive arguments are skills students will need in any future career. This is an example of a skill that After all, what good is memorizing the answers when the questions are constantly changing?
In life, Ricketts says, when faced with new challenges, he “uses his entrepreneurial skills to make mistakes to find answers.” Students need to know that mistakes and challenges are not the end of the road to knowledge, and that learning to navigate them is an essential skill on the road to success.
This is why we focus on positive learning, positive and positive skills that lead to curiosity and joy. Intrinsic curiosity can draw students into a topic, but what keeps them engaged that allows them to personalize these skills is what makes it personally relevant. only by making
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Ultimately, what matters most is equipping students with the skills they need for jobs that don’t yet exist, allowing them to design their own courses and explore that world with curiosity and joy.
Joe Ricketts is the founder, former CEO and former chairman of TD Ameritrade. he also Opportunity Education Foundation.
