Student Innovation Key to Future Economy

As the recession has led to a decline in traditional logic-based finance jobs, the future of America's economy will be based on the creative ideas and innovations of right-brained thinkers. This is the message Patrick Bassett, president of the National Association of Independent Schools, has been delivering around the country, the USA Today reports.

Bassett said the No Child Left Behind system is part of the problem because educational institutions have been so focused on math and test-taking. As a result, more creative approaches to learning, he said, have been neglected. But he does acknowledge some schools for breaking the mold.

One example is High Tech High, a charter school in San Diego, where students are encouraged to use creativity to come up with ideas for new sources of energy or calculating ways to stretch the West's limited water supply, said the school's CEO, Larry Rosenstock. Another example is Fay School in Southborough, Mass. Last year, students teamed with peers at South Saigon International School in Vietnam and used video chats to design a "socially conscious business model" that involved selling products and building awareness for disaster relief.

"It worries me that we're not thinking big enough," Bassett said, "that we're not preparing our kids for a world that will be terribly different from the one we grew up in."

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