I’ll explain why kids shouldn’t be taught multiplication tables, where the fashionable “fail fast and fail often” mantra of the Lean Startup movement breaks down, and how momentum—not experience—is the single biggest predictor of business and personal success.

Dyson says, and Papert confirms, that to get kids to become interested in an academic subject on their own, they have to play. Building with LEGOs, visiting museums, experimenting with tools.

“A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals.” “Once a small win has been accomplished,” Weick continues, “forces are set in motion that favor another small win.”

“Mathematics is a way of thinking about problems and issues in the world,” says Keith Devlin, Stanford executive and World Economic Forum and American Mathematical Society fellow.

And while we may need deep expertise in our industries to become innovators, we actually need only higher-order thinking and the ability to use platforms to do everything

“paradox of failure.”

Companies that pivot—that is, switch business models or products—while on the upswing tend to perform much better than those that stay on a single course.

“If you’re not failing you are either very lucky, very good, or not pushing the boundaries enough,” Staats says.

Finnish education reflects that: it focuses on teaching students how to think, not what to think. That, says Wagner, is core to making school both interesting and valuable. As the saying, attributed to Dr. Seuss, goes: “It is better to know how to learn than to know.”