Kelley Arnold

After spending the fall on the campaign circuit, Congress will return to work with an economy-killing challenge before it. Priority one for the lame-duck Congress will be to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, a set of eight statutory tax increases and spending cuts that collectively would shrink the economy by $600 billion and could tip the country back into recession.

While the strategies Congress will xpursue to meet this challenge won’t be clear until the dust settles from the election, some common themes are already coming into view.

Focus Gives Students Ownership of Their Work

It began with a sticky problem … literally.

Danville, Ky., High School physics teacher Danny Goodwin gave his students the following assignment: Create from scratch a substance so viscous it would hold in place a 500-gram weight on one end of a two-foot-long board when raised to create a ramp.

Students did not receive a how-to guide. Through trial and error they created their gluey concoctions and lathered them on their boards, then elevated the boards as high as possible before the weights slowly pulled loose and slid down the incline.

Article Authored by Bill Gates
 

Growing up, I was fortunate to have teachers who encouraged their students to explore areas of learning they were curious about. Having the freedom to try things out allowed me to develop a passion for computing—which eventually led me and a fellow student, Paul Allen, to start Microsoft.

Being lucky enough to have great teachers also nurtured a love of learning that has stayed with me ever since. As I told school leaders recently at the annual conference of the National Association of Independent Schools, my own experience in school is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about the work our foundation is doing in education.