Aleksey Vayner To Close Achievement Gap With His Bare Hands

by Chris Beam | December 18, 2006 at 9:09 am

Aleksey Vayner To Close Achievement Gap With His Bare HandsWhen it comes to fixing public education, ideas abound. Standardized testing. Charter schools. KIPP-like behavioral reform. But these supposed solutions pale when set against the latest pedagogical theory to hit America’s public schools: “Impossible is Nothing.”

We know, we know, it’s dead. Which is probably why one first-year Teach for America corps member thought it safe to turn would-be i-banker Aleksey Vayner’s ubiquitous maxim (well, technically Adidas had it first) into classroom philosophy. A poster in a New York TFA office reads as follows, according to a tipster:

NYC Corps Members are Building the Movement

Sean Reidy, TFA ‘06, 7th grade math, Bronx

Sean is building the movement by investing his students in his class motto, “Impossible is nothing.” Students believe they can and will succeed in math class. They dress up on test days and have learned what it means to dress for success. Almost two thirds of Seans’ seventh grade students joined the Mathletes, an after school club where students can compete against each other in challenging math questions.

For the record: Anything remotely connected to Vayner that also involves “dress up” is highly suspect. But who knows, maybe Vayner will get the last laugh after patching up our nation’s troubled education system. Whether that happens before or after the inevitable daytime talk show “Aleksey!”, we can’t say.

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