Kids on Earth: The Learning Potential of 5 Billion Minds

Twenty-first century youth are hungry for new ways to learn. Their world is global, mobile, and rich with opportunities previous generations couldn’t possibly have imagined. As they make clear in this book, the old standards of schooling no longer apply. In Kids on Earth, Howard Blumenthal and Robert C. Pianta go straight to the source—students themselves—to rethink public education for the five billion young minds projected to be learning by 2050.

Blumenthal and Pianta interview children and teenagers from more than seventy countries, along with parents, teachers, and learning experts, to build, from their perspectives, a scalable global framework for radical educational change. “New School,” in contrast to old school, is a foundational concept with three guiding pillars: learning is active, learning is personal, and learning is relational. Its teachings emphasize cognitive science, memory, and relationships—aligning learning with contemporary lived experience. New School also appreciates “Not School,” external instruction that involves media, technology, and other forms of learning. Integrating these spheres, Blumenthal and Pianta argue, would better reflect our hyperconnected, innovative world, motivating students to succeed within it.

Kids on Earth calls not for reform but reinvention, an ambitious, all-hands-on-deck effort to remake school for current and future generations, preparing them best for global citizenship. Unlike many books on education, this volume gives kids the chance to make it alright.