There are nearly 700,000 high school dropouts in America: year after year. Forty percent of inner city students do not graduate on time, if at all. This is a national tragedy which has huge cost factors, financially and spiritually, across a myriad of dimensions for our culture. And we can pay for this failure in perpetuity in terms of social service costs, and even jail time. Gordon writes about “The Great Stagnation of American Education.” Since 1990 educational attainment has “slowed to a crawl.” It’s time to innovate!

Inner city students are often multi-talented: they excel in art, music, dance, sport, and other activities. They have energy, imagination, and they are bored. They frequently act out as a function of depression, and a need for stimulation. The boredom factor cannot be underestimated in their environment. Many are “latent freedom writers” waiting to be developed. Too many, however, engage in criminal activity, and often become “cradle to prison” statistics.

Readin’, writin’, and rithmetic’, are marginally relevant for these students, at least for now. Over 40% of all public school students are in special education programs. Many are learning disabled and cognitively impaired.

We must meet these young people where they are, and stimulate their passions and expand their talents. In turn their learning issues often remit, and their cognitive functioning can even improve in concert with their deepening commitment to skill set development and amplification. The force and power of passion and talent can never be under estimated.

If a kid is a master graffiti artist, “capture” him and throw him in a room with graphic arts instructors and the latest and greatest Apple products. Train him up! Help him gain mastery of his talent fueled by his passion. Later, after genuine and earned self-esteem is achieved, he can start to focus more vigilantly on reading, writing, and balancing a checkbook. First things first: harness the passion, reinforce the talent. Grow the person from the inside out.

If a kid is a master auto thief, “capture” him and throw him in a room with security and electronics experts with state of the art equipment. Train him up. Make him an expert in the field. Grow his self-esteem and ego based on achievement and production within standardized job norms.

The Corporate World needs to be enlisted in this process big time. There are huge oceans of passion and talent waiting to be harvested. Innovation is limitless. The inner city is an open natural arena for corporate initiatives waiting to be mined.

This article by Christopher Bayer, Ph.D.(Psychologist & Psychoanalyst) – God Bless Him – summarizes and captures what The World talent University seeks to do with the youth. It is the very philosophical hinge on which our Talent Based Learning Model rests.