I know there isn’t a lot of “meat” to this post, but sometimes the biggest problems with our schools just need the most direct attack. We overstate our point too frequently, and that allows for others to drowned us out. Necessitarianism: a metaphysical principle that denies all mere possibility; there is exactly one way for [...]

Forgive me for my boardgame reference if it is wrong but, other than scrabble and Rummicube, I don’t play very many games so I am just giving this a shot. In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin discusses Candyland and why it represents everything that is synonymous with the old way of thinking about humans and [...]

I’m starting to believe that there is no such thing as “large-scale” education reform unless the government steps in and mandates it. Quite frankly, I don’t think large scale reform should exist anyway (especially by bureaucrats). Right now, the educational world has thousands of people who all have the answers to the question of what [...]

Individuals like Jeannie Oakes have proven that tracking students is a terrible practice and promotes inequality in education regardless of how “necessary” some educators and administrators deem the practice to be. Few fail to come to grips with the fact that tracking was originally used as a means to “Americanize” immigrants so that they would [...]

This week, several states announced their desire to pilot a program that would allow students to graduate high school early and immediately enroll in community college. These states should be applauded for taking steps in the right direction to customize education for all students. Note the fact that they are NOT pushing students out of [...]

I got into a discussion today over a lesson that I was performing with my kids. It was a tough assignment and they had to make some really complicated connections. In my mind, it was one of the better thinking activities we’ve done all year. I was explaining it to one of my friends who [...]

In reading Seth Godin’s book Linchpin, I can’t help but marvel at the role that education has played in developing workers as interchangeable parts. The fact is that the “factory system” of education WAS very well-suited in preparing people for jobs throughout the 1900s-1980s or so. Regardless of how you feel about its effect today, this method of education [...]