Author and Harvard Fellow Dr. Tony Wagner to Present to Faculty

New Hampton School faculty will begin opening meetings this week with a considerable amount of time dedicated to advancing in-classroom teaching techniques and pedagogy.

As part of its continued quest to provide the most enriching professional development opportunities, the School is thrilled to welcome author and Harvard fellow Dr. Tony Wagner on Friday, August 24. Dr. Wagner, one of the most sought after speakers on innovation in education, will present on "Creating Innovators." You can can follow the conversation on Twitter @NHSHuskies.

"We are thrilled to have Dr. Wagner come to campus," Head of School Andrew Menke said. "It is a priority of New Hampton School to offer our faculty professional development opportunities that are both relevant and inspiring."

Dean of Faculty Dan Love has followed Wagner's work over the years, and believes New Hampton School teachers can benefit from Dr. Wagner's message about innovation given the current climate of the School, which has embraced technology integration with a 1:1 iPad Program and became the first boarding school in New England to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program.

"In 2008, I read The Global Achievement Gap while NHS was having an important discussion about the skills our children need," Love said. "It influenced how we at New Hampton School established the 'Foundations of Learning: A Continuum of Skills for 21st Century Learners.' We realized the need to focus on problem solving, communication, and other critical learning skills thanks to Dr. Tony Wagner's research. I also had the opportunity to see Dr. Wagner at NAIS Annual Conference in 2010 in San Francisco where his message reaffirmed our school's path to become an IB school."

Dr. Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade.

Dr. Wagner consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility.

Dr. Wagneris also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and a widely published author. His work includes numerous articles and five books. Tony’s latest, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World, has just been published by Simon & Schuster. His recent book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can do About It has been a best seller and is being translated into Chinese.  

His other titles include: Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools, Making the Grade: Reinventing America’s Schools, and How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities Revisited.  He has also recently collaborated with noted filmmaker Robert Compton to create a 60 minute documentary, “The Finnish Phenomenon: Inside The World’s Most Surprising School System.”

Dr. Wagner earned an M.A.T. and an Ed.D. at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.