"Dedicated to education, but not precious about it"

That's how education leader, Dr. Paul Kelley, described his impression of Rep. Roy Takumi, Chairman of the Hawaii House Committee on Education.  They attended a conference together and ended up being at the same round table discussion on education and school hours.

Rep. Takumi was challenging the notion that schools require a certain number of hours of classtime, or "seat time" as some prefer to say, without any regard for the achievement of success.  If students achieve the academic goal in 30 hours instead of a standard 300 hours, "shouldn't we be focusing on the success and not trying to make students achieve in a certain way?" said Takumi.

After listening to the speaker and understanding his direction, Dr. Kelley was surprised to find out that the person behind the name tag was not an educator, but a politician.

Dr. Paul Kelley

Dr. Paul Kelley, according to his bio, is one of the U.K.'s best known education innovators.  Read more of Kelley's "Making Minds" blog post on Rep. Takumi.