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"I think we are in a street fight and most people in this room think we're in a college debate." Howard Fuller, NewSchool Venture Fund 2012 Summit


This discussion between Howard Fuller and Jonathan Schorr is from the opening session of this year's NewSchool Venture Fund Summit. It's inspiring and funny. If you don't have time to watch the whole video, check-out the below highlights:   
  • 6:50: Howard Fuller: "I think we are in a street fight and I think most people in this room think we're in a college debate. Our opponents are reading Saul Alinsky and we reading Steven Brill." 
  • 12:25: Howard Fuller: "There's a small group of people in the circle who are going to storm the bastille.  There's another group of people around the circle of the people who are stroring the bastille who are going to hold the coats. They not storming the bastille but they are holding the coats.  There's another group around them that are going to cheer for the coat holders; they're not holding the coats, they're not storming the bastille, but they are going to cheer. You feelin me? We got to be clear that those of us who are going to storm the bastille, we have to stay focus and relentless..." 
  • 22:09: Roy Gilbert, CEO of Grockit. "I would like to be the emissary from the future, from the internet, that says that the internet is changing education and making radical change already. We've just seen a street fight in past 12 months in the Arab Spring, where people were using technology to take down governments that had been tyrannical for 20 or 30 years. Unfortunately, I can't be that emissary because it just not true today.  The internet and technology has made only symbolic change in classrooms and in education. If you travel back in time to 1981 and took  nine year old Roy Gilbert and teleported me to the future to see what schools are like today and what my fourth grade daughter's life is like today, I would be astounded by her online life, skying with her grandparents and playing games online. But I would be depressingly familiar with what she does in the classroom, because her fantastic teacher, who is an education entrepreneur just like all great teachers are, has the same tools that my teachers had 30 years ago...So I think one of the most radical things that we can do is empower our true entrepreneurs, which are fantastic teachers, just as amazing as the designers and engineers that I work with at Grockit. And the true startups, the charter schools and public schools that are trying to make a difference and actually give them the tools, the internet, to make that same transformative change that we are seeing in the rest of society."


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