What can we learn about learning from Steve Jobs?

If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?…Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool that I have ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything…all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving what is only truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way of avoiding the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart….Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. ~ Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford Commencement

Steve Jobs was the Thomas Edison of our time. He was an inventor, a dreamer, and a fiercely independent man who refused to yield to average. He prized innovation and he got beaten up real good along the way for swimming against the current.

I have written about Disney, Jobs, and Einstein in a prior article, but I want take some time and to dig a little bit deeper into what Steven Jobs had to say about learning and life.

I often wonder what Steve Jobs would have looked like in a modern classroom. But maybe he gives a little bit of a hint in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech… He says that he dropped out of college. It freed him to drop-in on classes which interested him. He couldn’t connect the dots then, but he took a calligraphy class. That class would then be the basis for the hundreds of fonts which would be found on the Mac, and consequently, on all laptop and PC computers henceforth. It was the freedom to take classes which interested Steve Jobs that would eventually help him and Woz to build a computer shop in his garage at the age of 20. By the age of 30, Steve and Woz owned a company worth $2 billion dollars and had 4,000 employees.

Steve would be fired from Apple, the company he started. What a terrible mistake by Apple, but Jobs would grow from the experience, and he continued to innovate. He went on to form Pixar which produced the first computer animated film, Toy Story. He then went on to form NeXT which was eventually bought ironically by Apple. Steve was put back in charge of Apple. During that second tenure at Apple, he would lead the innovation which produced the iphone and ipad which incorporated touch screens and sleek designs.

Do you honestly think Steve Jobs would have thrived in a data driven classroom? I don’t. He needed an environment which allowed him to explore what he was good at. During his younger years, he notes that parents should be viewed by school systems as customers. He was actually a proponent of vouchers. He wanted parents to be able to choose the learning environments which fit their families the best. He envisioned a market where parents(as customers) would be able to shop for top educational experiences marketed for them. He envisioned poor learning environments being put out of business. I think Jobs would have been stifled in a modern classroom and his curiosity extinguished. Boredom does not extract innovation – well, maybe students develop innovative ways not to be bored! I’d like to think if given the choice, no family would choose data driven classrooms, but instead would choose classrooms which help students explore and innovate, to find the skills that they love, and to never settle. I’d like to think those data driven classrooms will one day be put of of business if exposed to a free market.

In his own words, two videos…..The first is Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University. Watch this one. You will never see him or your computer the same way again. As an elder statesman, I love the wisdom found here. Let’s be willing to learn from great minds. The second video is a younger Jobs talking about the educational market place.