A synopsis of a portion of Milton Chen's Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation.

1. The Thinking Edge:
 Thefirst edge is about how we view education and
the traditional roles that exist within the school
culture:
 teachers
 parents
 students
 administration
 As Chen describes the situation, “the biggest
obstacle to school change is our memories”
(Chen, 2010, p. 11).
 Educators and parents find it difficult to stray from
the school culture that they were indoctrinated in
as children. This inability to see past our own
experiences hinders the growth and change that
needs to take place in our education system.

2. Education and Ecstasy
by George Leonard
 Chendescribes topics written in this book by
Leonard over 50 years ago and its impact on
schools today. He recounts an interview with
Leonard in 1984 and the author’s views on what
education should look like. In includes:
 individualizededucation
 curriculum development
 increase teacher pay and respect
 provided consistent and tough rules for disruptive
behavior
 get parents and community involved
 most importantly, make school engaging and interesting
to students

3. Either/Or versus Both-And Chart
 Schools inherently seem resistant to change. As schools
test more and more, with no changes in the results, the
impetus is not to change the way schools are run, but to
increase testing in hopes that the results will change.
 Chen depicts this with his either/or versus both-and
chart. Some examples from this are the decision to
teach phonics skills OR whole language, when instead
the “smarter synthesis” is the both-and approach, which
states that “Both are critical to reading. What kinds of
rich linguistic environments support both?” (Chen, 2010,
p. 23).
 This chart summarizes the rigid views that exist in
education today and the openness that educators
needs to exhibit in which to meet the needs of students.

4. “When we want an elephant
to grow, we feed the
elephant. We don’t weigh
the elephant” (Chen, 2010, p. 27)
 Thisis an analogy used by an Indian educator to
describe the testing situation in America as
compared to India.
 In order to measure the success of the United
States’ educational system we test students (weigh
the elephant) instead of trying to impact the
achievement of our students (feed the elephant).

5. Brainology
 Growth Model of Intelligence by Carol Dweck
 In this program, students are taught to think of their
brain as a muscle and as they learn their brain grows.
 In this instance, students are given control over their
learning and thus are more motivated in the
classroom.
 The statistics from the program developed, Brainology,
are promising in the achievement of students.

6. Teaching Basketball from textbooks:
 Chen concludes the discussion on the thinking
edge with the example of teaching basketball
through textbooks.
 Never would one imagine teaching a sport from
just reading about it, students need to participate
and practice.
 He describes how this mindset should be applied
to how we teach our students in the classroom.