When I was four, my parents moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a small town 140 miles South along the Ohio River. In the weeks that followed, I made numerous trips to the Greyhound bus station trying to get on a bus back to Pittsburgh. Apparently, I didn’t understand the “ticket thing”. I was only four! Realizing […]
Continue Reading →If you had been an artist seeking greatness in the 1400s, moving to Florence, Italy to intern and associate with some of the greatest artists in history would have been a good idea, like a high-tech engineer moving to Silicon Valley in the 1980s. Although having a nurturing environment does not guarantee success, there is […]
Continue Reading →Knowing Who to Blame Is Not Useful. Addressing the world with the mindset that you are responsible for everything that happens has some considerable advantages. For one thing, much time, effort and energy is wasted arguing about whom or what is responsible. The simple statement, “I am responsible” can completely defuse many highly charged situations […]
Continue Reading →Wouldn’t it be nice if when we were young somebody would teach us that our self-concept is a dynamic and evolving process, and any decisions we make are always subject to later reconsideration and revision. Plus if every time we said “that is not me”, it evoked a discussion of the pluses and minuses of […]
Continue Reading →When we think of education, we often think about reading, writing and arithmetic, but there are other skills, life skills, that many believe are equally valuable. Life skills are usually more tacit than explicit and, therefore, are more difficult to assess than academic skills. Nevertheless, they are still essential and deserve to be taken seriously. […]
Continue Reading →I just finished reading the first round of editorials on the Reuters Great Debate blog. So far opinions have been expressed by Steven Brill, Joel Klein, Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier, currently senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education. Here is what I found out.
Before we can begin to improve our […]
Continue Reading →California has written into law that the preferred choice for reducing school district costs in the face of budgetary shortfalls is to reduce the length of the school year. At the same time, reducing school district budgets by laying off teachers is precluded by law.
Really!
Continue Reading →The No Child Left Behind initiative is a notable effort to establish metrics for our education system so its efficacy can be measured and appropriate corrective measures can be taken when necessary. This sounds like a good idea, and one can wonder why it has taken so long for us to get here. Maybe […]
Continue Reading →Naturally parents want to protect their children, but some of the ways they go about it can lead to problems and actually make their children’s journey to adulthood harder.
It is not easy to sit by and watch your toddler fall repeatedly, yet that is the way they learn to walk. Good parenting means […]
Continue Reading →Categories
- Education Reform (1)
- Ideas for Parents (7)
- Public Policy (3)
- Self-Directed Learning (5)
Post Archives
- August 2014 (1)
- December 2011 (1)
- November 2011 (1)
- October 2011 (1)
- September 2011 (1)
- August 2011 (4)