Dintersmith delivered a keynote to our 450 members at JAG's Opening Session for our 33rd Annual National Training Seminar in Orlando, followed by his film Most Likely To Succeed. We knew we were taking a risk with allocating three hours to him on opening day of our big annual event, but he delivered. He helped us build enthusiasm for a major new project-based-learning initiative we're launching, conveying its importance
Ted Dintersmith
Executive Producer of Most Likely to Succeed & Advocate for Innovation in Education
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Ted Dintersmith
Biography
Ted Dintersmith is one of America's leaders in innovation, entrepreneurship, and education.
Ted's professional experience includes two decades in venture capital, including being ranked by Business 2.0 as the top-performing U.S. venture capitalist for 1995-1999. He served on the Board of the National Venture Capital Association, chairing its Public Policy Committee. From 1981 to 1987, he ran a business at Analog Devices that helped enable the digital revolution. In the public sector, he was a staff analyst in 1976-78 for the U.S. House of Representatives, and was appointed in 2012 by President Obama to represent the U.S. at the United Nations General Assembly. Ted earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from Stanford University and a B.A. from the College of William and Mary, with High Honors in Physics and English.
Ted has become one of America's leading advocates for education policies that foster creativity, innovation, motivation, and purpose. He knows what skills are valuable in a world of innovation, and how we can transform our schools to prepare kids for their futures. His contributions span film, books, philanthropy, and the hard work of going all across America. He's funded and executive produced acclaimed education documentaries, including Most Likely To Succeed, (Sundance, AFI, and Tribeca). With co-author Tony Wagner, he wrote Most Likely To Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era. During the 2015/16 school year, he went to all fifty U.S. states, meeting with governors, legislators, educators, parents, and students, and encouraging communities to work collectively to re-imagine school and its purpose. Learn more about his work from his website or by following him on Twitter @dintersmith.
Ted speaks frequently at major events and conferences, delivering a vision of what our schools could - and need to - be. Drawing on inspiring examples garnered during his fifty-state tour, he can articulate the conditions required to let our students, teachers, and schools race forward. Recent keynotes include state superintendent meetings in Virginia and North Dakota, the annual meeting of the Coalition for Access (several hundred top college admissions officers), the annual Jobs for America's Graduates conference, and a plenary session of the Finnish parliament. In addition to his keynotes, Ted is often asked to also screen his film and lead a post-film discussion.
Ted Dintersmith
Featured Videos
Current: TEDx: Prepare Our Kids for Life, Not Standardized Tests
Time 11:38
More Videos From Ted Dintersmith
Ted Dintersmith
Featured Keynote Programs
What School Could Be
During the 2016 school year, Ted Dintersmith took an unprecedented education road trip that spanned some 1,000 meetings, and covered all fifty states. He observed remarkable examples of learning at its best -- teachers in ordinary circumstances doing extraordinary things. In this talk, Dintersmith describes the four key characteristics of PEAK learning experiences (purpose, essential skillsets and mindsets, agency, and deep knowledge), as well as policies that enable schools to develop these principles at scale.
What Every Businessperson Needs to Know About Education
Former venture capitalist and entrepreneur Ted Dintersmith knows innovation, and what skillsets and mindsets will be needed for the jobs of the future. In this talk, he connects the dots between workforce readiness and an education system that, in theory, prepares students for career but, in practice, impairs their life prospects. Any businessperson -- whether their focus is on workforce readiness, their own children or grandchildren, or the stability of our democracy -- will find this talk of immense interest.
What Every Parent Needs to Know About School
Parents face hard choices when it comes to school and their children. Do we push our kids to excel in the current system, or encourage them to find their own path forward? They are generally at odds, and the choices parents make have lifetime consequences for their child. Innovation expert (and parent of two) Ted Dintersmith has immersed himself in schools. In this talk, he shares insights into learning environments, parental priorities, and a child’s life prospects.
Transforming School
The Urgency and the Possibility
Without profound change in traditional education, most of our current students will be at risk in a world defined by innovation. It doesn’t have to be this way. Dintersmith draws on his trip to all fifty states during the 2015/2016 school year to highlight conditions that lead to exceptional student learning. He goes onto identify change models that enable a school, district, or even a state to effectively transform classrooms at scale.
Workshop Option: The speaker takes the audience through several exercises that bring insight into the purpose of school, and ways to effect change through agile, low-risk “hacks” (small innovations).
Ted Dintersmith
Featured Books
What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America
by Ted Dintersmith
Most Likely to Succeed
by Ted Dintersmith
The basis for a major documentary, two leading experts sound an urgent call for the radical reimagining of American education so we can equip students for the realities of the twenty-first-century economy. "If you read one book about education this decade, make it this one" (Adam Braun, bestselling author and founder of Pencils of Promise). Today more than ever, we prize academic achievement, pressuring our children to get into the "right" colleges, have the highest GPAs, and pursue advanced degrees. But while students may graduate with credentials, by and large they lack the competencies needed to be thoughtful, engaged citizens and to get good jobs in our rapidly evolving economy. Our school system was engineered a century ago to produce a workforce for a world that no longer exists. Alarmingly, our methods of schooling crush the creativity and initiative young people really need to thrive in the twenty-first century. Now bestselling author and education expert Tony Wagner and venture capitalist Ted Dintersmith call for a complete overhaul of the function and focus of American schools, sharing insights and stories from the front lines, including profiles of successful students, teachers, parents, and business leaders. Their powerful, urgent message identifies the growing gap between credentials and competence--and offers a framework for change. Most Likely to Succeed presents a new vision of American education, one that puts wonder, creativity, and initiative at the very heart of the learning process and prepares students for today's economy. "In this excellent book...Wagner and Dintersmith argue...that success and happiness will depend increasingly on having the ability to innovate" (Chicago Tribune), and this crucial guide offers policymakers and opinion leaders a roadmap for getting the best for our future entrepreneurs.
Ted Dintersmith
Featured Review
Ted Dintersmith
Featured Articles & Resources
How to make college admissions fairer
If you follow policy chatter, the future of U.S. K-12 education centers on federal policy (ESSA, RTTT, NCLB, ESEA), the Common Core, charter schools and school...
A venture capitalist searches for the purpose of school. Here's what he found.
Once in a blue moon, our nation focuses a modest amount of attention on our schools, and their purpose. Last year, William Deresiewicz’ excellently titled book “Excellent...
A basic flaw in the argument against affirmative action
By Valerie Strauss
A panel of judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just issued a ruling saying that the University of Texas can continue to use race as one factor...
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