Category: Learnings

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead There’s a movement starting in America, and the movement is called “microschools.” And many of the leaders of this microschool movement are women, the mothers of the young learners…

Schools back in session here in Des Moines, Iowa. My wife and I split time between Des Moines and Montpelier, Vermont, so I take an interest in what is happening with the largest K-12 public school system in Iowa. Back in July, the Des Moines Register published an article reflecting on Ian Roberts’s first year…

I recently ran across an article written by Chad Aldeman, a reporter for EducationWeek. The article, titled “No Textbooks, Times Tables or Spelling Test: Things My 6th Grader Didn’t Learn” begins, “My daughter recently completed sixth grade at our local public school. She had a wonderful experience with warm teachers and a positive school culture.…

“We have met the enemy, and they are us.” – Cartoonist Walt Kelly, Creator of “Pogo” If there was one belief that drove me crazy inside public schools, more than a hundred others, was when the system blamed the kids for academic under-performance. And it’s still happening. Last month, EducationWeek posted an article titled “Students’…

I recently read another article stressing the importance of media literacy as an essential skill young learners must have moving through the 21st century. Nate Noorlander, a teacher since 2012, writes in a recent EducationWeek post: “You can read this essay in a number of ways.” “You might skim it and forget it – the…

This past July, ASCD, a national curriculum organization, dedicated their monthly publication, EL, to strategies addressing student absenteeism and disconnection, with a focus on engaging learning experiences and open communication with families. ASCD’s Editor-in-Chief Sarah McKibben introduces the issue with this short article: “’Can we talk about chronic absenteeism?’ This title of a recent Reddit…

Read these words and think about what “might be” when it comes to creating a new system of learning for our kids: “So I want to talk about education, and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with…

Opening day for traditional K-12 campuses is right around the corner. Some schools have already started. The opening of a school year is a good time to examine the importance of motivation when it comes to making young learners smarter and stronger. Recently, EducationWeek bundled a group of articles together suggesting how teachers inside traditional…

I’m back. I used to be a big fan of “grit,” and how important it was to a young learner’s ability to become smarter and stronger. Angela Duckworth, a professor at The University of Pennsylvania, first termed the phrase “grit” back in the 2010’s, referring to a learner’s ability to persevere and become passionate about…