by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

The typical student in the United States is awake for about 16 hours a day. School, including getting there and back, and the occasional after school activity, accounts for nearly half of those hours. The balance is meant for family, meals, volunteer commitments, part-time jobs, community sports leagues, church or synagogue, leisure reading and homework.

If that seems like a lot to squeeze into just eight waking hours a day, consider the following: adolescents are spending seven and a half of those hours connected to electronic media! This according to a new study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The explosion of multi-purpose cell phones (cameras, game-playing devices, Facebook interfaces), among other developments in the past decade, has dramatically increased such activities. Harry Potter and Twilight aside, these increases have come at the expense of leisure reading.

According to the Kaiser study, adolescents between the ages of eight and 18 average four and a half hours of television-watching daily and an additional two and a half hours listening to music. Of course unlike when we were teens, listening to music meant being holed up in our rooms with the stereo cranked up, today’s music listening often accompanies other activities like chores, reading, and homework.

Another two hours are dedicated to cell phones: text messaging now occupies nearly an hour and a half of each day, while talking on those phones just a half hour. Video games played either on their phone or on the computer accounts for over an hour a day, and at-home, non-school related computing another hour and a half.

Do the math: that amounts to 13 ½ hours, squeezed into less than eight hours thanks to multi-tasking that comes so easily to teenagers today. Back to that image of yourself as a teen, lying on your bed, eyes closed listening to albums through the headphones your parents made you wear rather than disturb the entire house. Today that scene—ear buds plugged into a phone, listening to music while texting friends, catching up on Facebook while finishing math homework. Don’t ask me how it’s possible…I still can’t concentrate on the reporter’s words while trying to read a chyron as it scrolls “breaking news” across the bottom of the TV screen.

I am not sure what message this really brings. I suspect I’m just the latest in 2,000 years worth of older folks worrying about how the newest generation can possibly keep up with the pace of life. But I do hope that college students (medical students in whose care I’ll someday be) are really able to learn their stuff, complete their assignments and retain everything, while connected to so many for so long in so many ways, while they meet the demands of schooling.

By Brian Fisher, AdmissionsQuest

Dr. Nido Qubein, President of High Point University, shared his zest for life and his philosophy during Thursday’s conference lunch. Part tent revival, part comedian, part practical philosopher, part story teller, Dr. Qubein affirmed the importance of education and the transformational experiences that schools and educators provide students.

Preaching to the choir he made the case for the responsibility that educators carry and the great affects they have on their students.

Environment. Environment. Environment. He likened students’ abilities to grow and adapt the adaptive abilities of the Koi fish. An environment rich in opportunities, expectation, and support grows the healthiest students.

Focus, expectation, and modeling drive his interactions and decisions for his students. He’s brought student centered learning to his alma mater, High Point University.

I laughed more during Dr. Quebein’s talk than during any keynote I remember. What I write doesn’t do justice to Dr. Qubein’s public speaking.

By Brian Fisher, AdmissionsQuest

I spent a few minutes in Barbara Cunningham’s (Summit Preparatory School) Wednesday presentation “Intellectually Gifted Underachievers: The Oxymoron Unraveled.” She’s done nice work in establishing some correlations and common experiences of kids who fit this profile and developing strategies to move them toward fulfilling their potentials.

In a word, these kids require engagement. They want to be actively involved and benefit from strong relationships. They want their thinking to contribute to the future.

Good work always seems to come back to reaching out and connecting.

By Brian Fisher, AdmissionsQuest

Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Rule the Future made the case for faster changes in American educational structures- arguing that we’re missing the future by basing our school educational models on our past.

It’s tough to shift our thinking, basing our educational approaches and philosophies- not on what worked best in the past- but on our best judgments of what will be best for the future.

Past approaches worked for me; it worked for my parents; it should work for tomorrow. We seem to leave the constant of change out of our educational planning.

Arguing that the abilities of the future mater more than the abilities of the past, our educational system needs to begin looking forward- preparing students for future economic and cultural realities.

Making the case that routine tasks, automation have become commodities and will seek the lowest labor costs, what, then, does the future hold for the US economy and educational systems- complexity, premium design, and new products.

Creative engagement based on looking toward the future.

Education, Pink argued, isn’t moving fast enough to build and support the shift away from the routine production based economy. The tools and approaches that worked in past decades aren’t necessarily the best tools for the future.

What worked for parents in the past stands in the way of updating our childrens’ education for the future.

To prepare for the future we must let go of our past-based assumptions- “myth of metrics,” “myth of math, science and engineering,” and move beyond the motivation of “if-then incentives.”

Our best economic and educational future lies in moving our world and educational view from compliance to engagement- not just doing, thinking creatively about your environment and how to do things differently.

Success in a complex world requires engagement.

“Compliance will get you through the day. Engagement will get you through the night.”

By Brian Fisher, AdmissionsQuest

Everyone on campus or in your office conveys messages and sells the school or your services. We all think we practice pretty good customer service. Do we?

Beth Black, Cherokee Creek Boys School, made the case for service in her presentation, “Everything I learned About Marketing, I Learned from a Mouse.”

In schools we assume our customer service is pretty good. But, in my school experiences, we never sat down and worked through constituent/customer service from beginning to end. What does it mean and what do we need to do make sure that we respond as well as possible in every situation?

Bluntly, we never had customer service philosophy or plan. We just assumed that everyone had good sense of customer service- responding to families in the best, most effective way.

Black took participants through the eye opening exercise of customer service from the customer’s perspective and the ways in which organizations can define and build systems and philosophies that keep the customer at the fore of every employee’s action.

The bottom line, “Quality service lives in the hearts and minds of the staff.”

Schools tend to become wrapped in their routines and daily events. Consultants with solo practices or small shops sometimes forget about a clean parking lot or warm entryway. We let our external connections slip.

Customer service basics weigh heavily in the equation; returning phone calls and returning e-mail matter more than ever.

The best anecdote of the meeting- the school maintenance man who greeted campus visitors and was equipped to provide an introduction to campus. The family- purposefully visiting this campus unannounced- appreciated the warm greeting. Their student enrolled.

Why customer service here and now? It’s a topic/concept that we often let slip in education. Education sells itself right? Not necessarily.