Knowledge@Wharton: In your 2008 book, The Global Achievement Gap, you identified seven survival skills children need to succeed. In your new book, you add to those skills. You write: "Only one set of skills can ensure this generation's economic future: the capacity for innovation." What has changed since that book came out, and why do you think innovation is now so critical to America's future?

Tony Wagner: What changed is the global meltdown in 2008. My book came out then, and I got tremendous validation about the seven survival skills and how important they were. But then I saw college students coming home with a BA degree, seemingly having mastered some of those skills, but in fact, not having a job. Right now, 53% of all college students under the age of 25 are either un- or underemployed. A third of them are living at home. I began asking myself if these skills were enough, and the more I studied the problem, the more I realized the economic collapse in this country is driven by the fact that we have a consumer-driven economy. I concluded that that economy is, in turn, driven by debt. We have created an economy based on people spending money they do not have to buy things they may not need, threatening the planet in the process. As I really studied and tried to understand what the alternative is, and what's going to be the engine of the American economy going forward if this consumer-driven economy is not sustainable, I came to understand the importance of innovation and then became interested in the question of how, in fact, do you grow an innovator? What must we do differently as parents, teachers, mentors and employers?

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