ONE MORE THING: Betsy managed to put one personal question to Secretary Duncan earlier this week, namely: "If you were a junior in high school right now, what would you do? Would you take courses online? Focus on schoolwork? Build robots?"
Duncan's first answer was a three-pointer: "I'd play more basketball," he quipped. But then he continued:
"But in all seriousness: I'd take a college level class -- whether AP or online or at a local school. Another thing I don't think we do enough of is experiential learning around something you're interested in -- a job shadowing, an internship, a mentorship, whether it's with a startup or a nonprofit. We should be giving our children access and opportunities to pursue their passions, even as early as middle school. And frankly, I'd probably spend less time in a traditional high school setting of the kind I went to when I was a kid."
Build passion. Build competence. Develop mastery in something, for the confidence it builds and for the sheer joy of it. Sounds like good advice to us.
