“Here’s to the Crazy Ones”

by jasonmkern · October 9, 2016

If you were at a formative age in 1997, you remember the Think Different campaign that coincided with Steve Jobs return to Apple. And you remember the advertisement that encouraged us to honor the “crazy ones.”

Is our current educational system producing the Jim Hensons, the Richard Bransons, the Mohandas Ghandis, the Thomas Edisons? Is our fascination with SAT and AP scores allowing our students to find their passions and blaze their own paths?

I believe we as educators need to create high school graduates who can ask great questions not simply give compliant answers.

I believe we as educators need to create high school graduates who can ask great questions not simply give compliant answers. I believe we need to provide authentic experiences where students can do something tangible and then reflect and learn from their successes and failures. I believe one way we can accomplish this is through allowing students to build their own businesses or non-profits while they are still in upper school. This type of opportunity will have students excited about coming to school to solve problems and reflect on their learning instead of dreading coming to fill out worksheets.

The portion of this story you may not remember was that this advertising strategy pointed out the glaring difference between Apple and IBM (who’s slogan was Think). It was the classic challenger against the establishment story. To illustrate how “Think Different” paid off imagine if you invested $1000 in each company back in 1996. As of July 2015 your IBM investment would be worth over 7 times what you invested. However, if you would have put that same $1000 in Apple, it would be worth over $117,000.