Excellence, Education, Entrepreneurship, and Human Flourishing
About the talk
While "schools" are usually regarded as institutions that "teach" students skills and content, they can also be designed to develop distinctive subcultures. There is significant evidence that cultural variables have a greater impact on both academic performance and adolescent well-being than does curriculum, teacher quality, school funding, and other familiar variables. How might we redesign schools in order to focus on the development of distinctive subcultures that result both in better academic performance and improved adolescent well-being? Can we deliberately create virtue cultures for the 21st century?
About the speakers
Michael Strong is one the most experienced designers of innovative educational models in the U.S., having created schools and programs for the past thirty years based on Montessori, Socratic, and entrepreneurial principles. A charter school he co-founded in one of the poorest regions in the U.S. was ranked the 36th best public school in the U.S. He is the author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice" and the lead author of "Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems."
Magatte Wade is passionate about creating jobs and prosperity in Africa through entrepreneurship and economic freedom. She was born in Senegal, educated in France, and launched her entrepreneurial career in San Francisco. She is fluent in and conducts business in Wolof, French and English. Magatte's current product line, manufactured in Senegal, is skin is skin, a lip balm dedicated to reducing racial discrimination. Her previous companies, Tiossan and Adina, brought Senegalese recipes and ingredients to U.S. markets in skin care and beverages.
Based on her experiences creating consumer brands and building agricultural and manufacturing capacity in Senegal, Magatte has spoken at dozens of universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, etc., as well as at global conferences on innovation and economic development in France, England, Dubai, Guatemala, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Gabon, Senegal and more. She writes for the Huffington Post, Barron’s, and the U.K. Guardian. She is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum at Davos and has appeared on the cover of Forbes Afrique. She was also named one of the “Twenty Young Power Women of Africa” by Forbes U.S.
Magatte’s work was recently profiled in a FEE documentary, "Made in Meckhe" and TED recently released her talk "Why it’s too hard to start a business in Africa – and how to change it"
Joint with Great Hearts Academies and co-sponsored with the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership