Top:  Thomas Edison, Alan Turing, Nikolas Tesla  Middle: Walt Disney, Mary Cassatt, Marie Curie   Bottom: Galileo Galilei, Claude Monet, Albert Einstein

What are the characteristics of an apprentice of Leonardo da Vinci?  First, the people above would all qualify as apprentices of Leonardo.  All of them grew up in a world of conformity, established beliefs, and standards.  All challenged the established beliefs and traditions.  Each one was ridiculed, smeared, or shunned.  You see, traditions and conformity go hand in hand.  Once accepted, anyone who confronts the established validity, framework, or rules is no longer accepted by the masses.  

Each above approached his work and then asked a simple question, “What if. . .”  It is not just the question(s) they asked it’s the action they all took.  They all shifted 90 degrees, and as strange as it seems, their actions caused the rest of the world to eventually accept and benefit from their ideas, visions, and dreams.

My personal 90-degree shift occurred back in 1995.  It started with a simple question, “What if my students could collaborate with another school, in another state, on a science project–online?”  My school, Don Bosco Technical Institute, in 1995, did not yet have the Internet.  But I did on my personal account with AOL.  I contacted AOL and asked if we could set up an electronic schoolhouse.  I helped to develop the format, and then launched my program, “Space Island’s.”  I developed a project that involved a virtual space station orbiting earth.  Each participating school would have its own lab onboard to conduct experiments.  In 1995, websites were still rare and all communication was done via emails and FTP settings.

By 1996, the program had gone viral with  2.3 million students and teachers in forty nations, ranging from elementary schools to universities.  In that same year, the U.S. Congress placed my program into the Library of Congress as a historical event.  It was documented as the first successfully launched long distant educational program ever completed online.  Today, many universities and educational institutions benefit from online distant learning, and it all began with a question.

In 2005, I had two new questions.  “What if educators, who are trained to teach, actually were given the chance to do just that?”  Question number two, “What would happen if educators took back the reigns from businesses and politicians that now run education?”  In that year, Leonardo’s Apprentice was born.  

Leonardo’s Apprentice is about taking a 90 degree shift from the present course we have all been put on by both politicians and big business and giving control back to where it belongs, with the educators.  It’s about giving the professional educator the respect and right to plan the strategies of engaging student learning.  This is not about creating a new model or template. It is about generating visions, ideas and action that will bring efficacy to future generations.  Generations who, in turn, will learn to make their own 90 degree shifts.

The upcoming series will not be a monologue but a dialogue of exchanges.  Exchange of ideas, questions, doubts, and most importantly–movement!  It will all start by taking the 90 degree shift from conformity and tradition into exploration and discovery.  The first dialog will be on, “How To Engage Students.” I look forward to our future discussions and sharing your ideas and visions.   Begin by leaving a comment or questions below and registering your email for my future book, “Making A 90 Degree Shift: Learning how to become a Leonardo’s Apprentice Educator.”