A Better Path to Learning

Category: Learnings

  • Anywhere Learning Revisited

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    Welcome back, and Happy 2026! ABPTL hopes all of you had a restful and relaxing holiday season. I was in Texas for Christmas and had the opportunity to visit Houston’s Center for Photography (HCP), a mix of photography museum and a leading source of photographic education offering a variety of engaging courses and workshops from…

  • 2025: Year in Review

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    We are winding down ABPTL for 2025, so let’s look at some of the top news from the year. Every year The 74 releases a story (December 9, 2025) focused on the top educational news from the past year. Here are highlights from that story: Immigration enforcement worsened absenteeism in our public schools. In California’s…

  • Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle

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    “Australia is actually doing this. As of December 10th, no one under 16 will be allowed to have an account on TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, or basically any other platform an average teen might care about.” That was the lead in an article appearing in December 4th online issue of The Atlantic. Called the Online…

  • The Danger of Assumptions

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    A beginning teacher was sitting at her desk one day when her principal came into the room. The principal handed her a class roster. Beside the student names were numbers – beginning with the number 120. The teacher was ecstatic since she had inherited such a smart class, as the numbers beside the student names…

  • Embracing Followership

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    Not everyone can be a leader. We need good followers, people who know how to support and act. I listened with interest to Shane Battier, a retired NBA champion basketball player, talk about the importance of being a top teammate. Here are some excerpts from his December, 2024 TED talk: “What if I could tell…

  • Anywhere Learning: The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum

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    As I wander around this world, I often think about all of the places I visit that could make outstanding learning spots for kids – space that could, if they wanted to, take the place of under-performing schools that are injuring young learners, especially black, brown, and poor learners, on a daily basis. One such…

  • Again, A Failed Model

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    Twenty years ago, our K-12 system talked a lot about preparing students to be “college and career ready.” The thought back then was kids needed to have strong reading, writing, and problem-solving abilities no matter what path they were pursuing – college or a trade. The sad news today is that our traditional public education…

  • The Folly of Scientific Reading

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    Mike Miles is not well liked in certain circles in Houston, Texas. Miles is the state-appointed school superintendent that seems to be hanging around the Houston Independent School District (HISD) for too long, some say. ABPTL covered a story awhile back about Miles and his central office cronies mandating Houston classrooms to cease reading chapter…

  • A Failing Model

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    If you pay attention, there are signs all over the place that our current K-12 educational system is failing. Although it’s no fault of most teachers, administrators, and students, the fact remains that too many of our kids are not becoming smarter and stronger after spending time in our public schools. Witness a story appearing…

  • Learning as a Civil Right

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    Mary Maker is a South Sudanese refugee, a United Nations High Commission for Refugees activist, and founder of Elimisha Kakuma, a non-profit committed to helping Sudanese refugees to become smarter and stronger. In 2018, Maker gave an impassioned TED Talk at TedxKakumaCamp titled “Why I Fight for the Education of Refugee Girls.” Here are excerpts…