Ok, so following the advice of business leaders when it comes to education hasn’t done much to improve… well, much of anything in the past couple of decades or so.

But at least Steve Wozniac, co-founder of Apple, is slightly more qualified to offer insight on education matters than the founder of another big technology company.

He actually has some experience teaching kids and has a good understanding of the difference between school and learning.

Woz was skeptical about whether sufficient change would come about anytime soon, even though most problems in our education system are well known. “My whole life, [leaders] have been talking the same way, so I don’t know how soon it will change,” he said. But change it should. “We need to teach kids how to learn.

“If you can motivate a student to want to learn, that’s so much more important that what’s in the book,” Woz continued. “I had this pastime–I fell in love with computer logic. Any fifth-grader can understand the stuff in 99 percent of digital electronics. And in fifth grade I made myself this challenge to try and design computers using less chips. So I had this challenge, and that motivated me.”

In most schools today, we challenge kids by giving them more practice tests.

Not very motivating for those fifth-graders who might be interested in learning what’s not in the book.