The Covid-19 crisis is shining a huge new spotlight on inequities in K-12 education. Every school and district in America, and many around the world, are racing to figure out how to educate children and prepare adults during long-term closures. The range of problems is enormous, from access to technology, support for students with learning [...]
We have passed a fundamental tipping point in the evolution of human connectivity. For millennia, big ideas spread through a highly-constricted pipeline. Masses of humanity listened to a handful of political, religious, or social influencers and followed where those few led. Humans were a metaphorical crowd of 10,000 people listening for one good idea from [...]
In his new book, Technology vs Humanity, futurist Gerd Leonhard explores the really big changes that are driving fundamental shifts in how we all lead our lives, and may, within our own lifetimes, challenge the very paradigm of what it means to be human. These shifts will have tremendous impact on the role and relevance [...]
There is no American Dream without the possibility of upward economic mobility. Education is, at its core, about preparing young people to succeed in a life to which they aspire, which is almost always at least as fruitful, if not more so, than that of their parents. Today, that dream is more remote for more [...]
This is the commencement address I gave on May 27 at Delphian School in Oregon. Delphian is a very unusual school, with a program that fully embraces performance-based learning. Students work at their own pace; teachers are mentors and tutors, and do not hold traditional classes. They have been getting a flood of visitors recently [...]
While we may differ on the best definition of the role of education, most of use probably agree that providing students the tools to seek truth during their lives is an important part of the mission of education. So, what do we do when falsity is winning the battle? A new study by three MIT [...]
My article on "community" was posted today in Ed Week as a Guest Blog with Next Generation Learning Challenges: I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that there may be no single piece of the education puzzle that is already starting to undergo a more fundamental, radical, and unpredictable evolution than the relationship amongst schools, [...]
One powerful indication of just how fast the world is moving: students in K-12 today may be VERY different than those of just 10-15 years ago. In her book iGen, Jean Twenge (HT to Andrea Fanjoy who is going to do a deeper review of this book, which I will share when she publishes it) [...]
Education is, if anything, about the future. For every family in every city, town, and region in every country, education is a system designed to build a better future for our children. In America, for more than a century, that future has been wrapped up in something we imagine called The American Dream, the idea [...]
Educators have often been confronted with uncomfortable, and sometimes life-changing questions: When is it acceptable to take a controversial stand? When is it imperative? When should we follow a community consensus and when must we lead in opposition to community norms? On which issues do leaders rise, even when the threat of doing so is [...]
