Tony Wagner has spent thirty years studying one question: what do students actually need to thrive? In this episode, he shares a number that stopped me cold — of 109 ninth graders in a typical public school, only 14 ever end up in a job that pays a living wage.
I asked him what he’d add to his own famous list of skills, just for the AI era. His answer: integrity.
Partway through this conversation, I walked him through Mastery Vivas for the first time — no advance warning, no pitch, just explaining what I’m doing in my own classroom. His reaction is on tape, and it’s one of my favorite moments this season.
P.S. — something I'm genuinely excited about: MasteryFlip is now being translated into Spanish, not just word-for-word but re-contextualized for schools in Misiones, Argentina — the first unit is live already. I'll give you the full story and the sign-up link next week, but I didn't want to sit on the news that long. Here is the link to the course:
Key Moments
0:00 – Cold open: his answer to the eighth survival skill
1:05 – Guest intro and interview begins
2:49 – Updating his famous “seven survival skills” for the AI era
4:15 – The “forklift in the weight room” metaphor and his fear of a coming bifurcation
6:56 – The stat that’ll stop you cold: 109 ninth graders, 14 living-wage jobs
11:41 – You walk him through the Mastery Viva live — his reaction is real-time, unscripted
36:10 – His one book recommendation for teachers heading into fall
37:22 – The kindred-spirits close
38:13 – A quick note on the new Spanish-language MasteryFlip course (more next week)
