A Better Path to Learning

Tag: schools

  • Future Demands

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    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…

  • Scripting Change

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    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…

  • Kitchen Conversations

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    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…

  • Friday News Roundup

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    It’s Friday, so it’s time for the News Roundup. How Districts Can Keep High-Impact Tutoring Going After ESSER Money Expires (The 74) It seems like the only strategy working these days to help kids improve their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills is small group or one-to-one tutoring. But funding for that tutoring is questionable moving…

  • Taking Care of Late Bloomers

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    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…

  • Homeschoolers and Outside the Box (School) Thinking

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    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…

  • The Public Commons

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    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…

  • Schools Aren’t Change Agents

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    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…

  • Friday News Roundup

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    It’s Friday. Time for the News Roundup. Iowa Ranks 7th for Kids’ Well-Being, Report Says. But Students Struggle with Reading, Math (The Des Moines Register) The Des Moines Register reported last week that, “A new report ranks Iowa seventh in the nation for children’s well-being, but a nonprofit leader cautions that the state still faces…

  • The Sentence That Explains It All

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    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…