Category: Learnings

It used to be that the Republicans was the party interested in privatizing education in this country. The Republicans were friendly to private schools, charter schools, and vouchers – anything to improve America’s failing public school system. The Democratic Party were always the ones playing the role of cheerleader for America’s public education system, especially…

Stronger and smarter learners depend on the ability to make good decisions. When learners develop their own learning plans, when they define, plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning, they make hundreds if not thousands of decisions about what and how they will learn. Recently, Arthur C. Brooks, a contributing writer to The Atlantic and…

Traditional K-12 leadership hold two beliefs dear. First, they believe that their system serves the public – all of the public. Second, they believe that public education is essential to the future of democracy. In a recent EducationWeek article, reporter Chad Aldeman took on both premises. Aldeman writes, “Is public education the foundation of American…

To be an effective learner, you must have a growth mindset – meaning you must be comfortable with change and all it brings to you. Recently, I watched Maya Shankar, host of the podcast “A Slight Change of Plans’ deliver a TED talk on “Why Change is So Scary – and How to Unlock its…

When you spend a week at a vacation lake house in northern Minnesota with family, there’s always a chance the topic of “how to fix public education” might pop up as a kitchen conversation. This visit, while I was washing the breakfast dishes, my sister-in-law wondered out loud if we should pay our public school…

Our oldest son would be categorized as a late blooming basketball player. When he was a high school freshman, he was one of the smallest on the court. As a high school senior, he was ignored by universities and only attended the University of Houston as a walk-on through the good graces of then new…

When we opened a personalized learning lab school back in 2014, a large portion of the 50-middle school-aged kids who enrolled came from homeschool backgrounds. One of the first differences I saw between those kids and kids coming from the traditional K-12 public system was the homeschoolers’ ability to take risks with their learning. They…

I ran across a TED Radio Hour program from 2021 titled “The Public Commons.” The hour was all about how we can create public places that feel welcoming and safe for everyone, including young learners. Here’s some of what I learned: Shari Davis is a community organizer and youth advocate in Boston. While working for…

Back in March, I participated in an online town hall meeting, sponsored by Tom Vander Ark’s organization Getting Smart. The town hall’s title was “What Will it Take to Make Learner-centered Ecosystems a Public Education Reality?” A large portion of the meeting addressed the why and the what of making learner-centered ecosystems more prevalent inside…

The Big Questions Institute shared an article recently written by the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria in Canada. The title of the article is “Intergenerational Responsibilities in Difficult Times: The Story of the Faculty of Education’s ‘Generational Bowl’.” Excerpts from that article follow: “A ‘nexus event’ represents a critical juncture where multiple…