Reach for Greatness

Make education personalizable - Every child can be great when they own their learning

For years, focusing on the achievement gap has led to the same result: We hope for greatness and settle for competence. But why settle? It’s time to recognize that the potential for greatness lies in a unique form within each child, and that the goal of education should be to encourage and develop it. 

This inspiring manifesto brings in research from different disciplines to show where children’s strengths and passions can be found, and how personalizable education uncovers them. Also included:

• Strategies for implementing personalizable education
• Examples showing practices that have gone wrong—and right
• Guidance for teaching disadvantaged students 

Every child has the potential to be great. Teaching for greatness gives students control of their own learning—and guides them toward future happiness and success.

Are you tired of gimmicks like "personalized learning" that have become empty slogans, but keen for the real depth and substance of an education that helps all students to reach their full potential?  If so, Yong Zhao's Reaching for Greatness is the book for you!  With vivid examples and carefully scaffolded argumentation, Zhao shows how what he calls "personalizable education" offers an exciting and practical future for all of our students truly to become great.  Zhao's writing is full of whimsy and humor, so that you can't wait to see what this wonderful alchemist of educational change is going to say next. Best of all, this gem of a book is one that not only all teachers, but also a rising generation of students, will cherish as well.

--Dennis Shirley, Professor, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Educational Change.

Once again Yong pulls us from our narrow view of what education is and reminds us what it needs to be. Personalized education (as opposed to the ubiquitous and limited notion of personalized learning) is essential for a time in which we need to recognize and cultivate the diverse strengths of our students for their own good and our shared future on earth. Poignant stories from Yong's global travels to schools make the research in this call to action relatable and accessible for all educational stakeholders. This is an important read!  

--Emily McCarren, Academy Principal, Punahou School, co-author of The Take Action Guides to World Class Learners book series.