Ted Dintersmith is an education advocate, author, filmmaker, and former venture capitalist whose work focuses on preparing young people for a rapidly changing world. After a successful 25-year career as a partner at Charles River Ventures and service on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations focused on education and entrepreneurship, he turned his attention to reimagining schooling for the innovation era. Ted is the executive producer of the acclaimed documentary Most Likely to Succeed and the author of What School Could Be, drawing on visits to hundreds of schools across all fifty states. Through his writing, films, philanthropy, and public speaking, he has become a leading voice for educational experiences that cultivate creativity, purpose, agency, and real-world problem solving rather than standardized test performance alone. Highlights from the episode include: an opening plug for Rod and Jal's new "Deeper Learning Alliance," a growing community of school leaders learning together, experimenting together, and transforming education—guided by Harvard's Deeper Learning Institute; Ted's shift from the venture capital to the education space; an introduction to the "PEAK" framework for meaningful learning experiences; what we can learn from how Finland values and prepares their teachers; examining the skills schools reward versus the skills modern life demands; why schools seem to be overvaluing the wrong types of math; the connection between education, democracy, and civic life; and a lightning round that examines the world of gambling!

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