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We polled 70,000 kids in fifth through 12th grade and found that students who are engaged, who are on the thriving end of the wellbeing scale, and who are hopeful are approximately four times more likely to qualify as financially literate than disengaged, suffering, or discouraged students.

A Gallup study showed that 77% of students in grades five through 12 said that they want to be their own boss, and 45% plan to start their own business. When we asked the same group if they believed they would "invent something that changes the world," 42% said "yes."

When Gallup-HOPE asked these kids if they were currently interning with a local business, 5% said "yes." So there are about 23 million kids in an entrepreneurial state of mind, but 95% of them aren't getting the attention they need to become entrepreneurs. However, our research also shows that if we can move that 5% up to 25%, we can change the world.

"It's not about the tools, Bill," Sheryl pushed back. "It's about the behaviors that the tools enable."

After all, most schools are investing their professional-development technology budget in training teachers to use computers for non-instructional purposes even though new tools allow for a significant shift in pedagogy.

Instead of exploring how new digital opportunities can support student-centered inquiry or otherwise enhance existing practices, today’s schools are preparing their teachers to use office automation and productivity tools like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

He’s talking about doing something so creative that you establish a distinct market, niche and identity. You’ve established a creative monopoly and everybody has to come to you if they want that service, at least for a time.

Instead of developing a passion for one subject, they’re rewarded for becoming professional students, getting great grades across all subjects, regardless of their intrinsic interests. Instead of wandering across strange domains, they have to prudentially apportion their time, making productive use of each hour.

Competition has trumped value-creation. In this and other ways, the competitive arena undermines innovation.

Victor: What is something educators can do right now to reimagine their schools?

Chris: I think what every educator should be able to do is to consider “What do I control, what do I have control over?” And by control, I don’t mean command-and-control teaching, I mean, if you’re a classroom teacher, what you own inside your classroom or, if you are a principal, within your school. Within the boundaries that we have control over, how can we develop visions of what we want in order to invest in our kids? Then, latch all of our systems and structures that we have control over to that overall vision. The way kids produce information, the way they consume information, the way they reflect, the way that we as educators grade, the way we sit kids in the classroom, anything that you have control over, ask yourself, “Does it leverage the best ideas that we have? Does it leverage the best vision for what we have for what we hope kids can do and learn and be with us?” If not, change your policies! Change your structures so that they are more closely aligned to that best vision of what we are and what we can be.

Chris: I think you let people see what is best. I think you let people what is possible. You stop making this one more thing that teachers have to do and help them see that using this technology will allow them to transform their practice.