Roughly $265, for me, on this weekend. That is the approximate cost of gas and hotel to drive and stay in Phoenix to volunteer as a poll observer this weekend. The role of observers is to watch for, and report, anything untoward at a polling place, and I both hope and expect it will be [...]
Education is about passing along the lessons of the past to better prepare our students for the future. I believe we are seeing one of the most profound moments in our nation's history play out in real time, a tipping point that may well spell the end of the Great American Experiment. While most of [...]
Wildfires in the North American west, increased frequency of hurricanes in the American south and flooding in the midwest, all have one thing in common: heat transfer. For the remaining climate change deniers, there is only one real question left: will this new normal last decades, or much, much longer? As a geology student at [...]
Are we finally at a tipping point, in the long march for equality? Will the events of 2020 prove transformative or ephemeral? A chat this morning with my colleague Padme Raina at Ashbury College School in Ottowa about their budding pluralism project reenforces the idea that the answer to these questions come down to one [...]
Looking for a short, provocative video to stimulate some virtual discussions amongst your school stakeholders this fall? I was honored to have this 5 min video published by Big Think, a media outlet that covers ideas shared across a broad range of sectors. It has had close to 10,000 views this week; hope it might [...]
A half century ago the shortest period of time that really mattered to most of the world was 23 minutes. That was the time it would take for an intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple nuclear warheads to travel from the Soviet Union to the United States, or vice versa, signaling the end of the world [...]
We all want schools to open in the fall. Whether or not that happens will be a direct result of one thing: the degree of courage to do the right thing across our communities. Over the last month, many who previously doubted the science of pandemics have become believers. Governors who rushed to open their [...]
This summer, and even more so in the fall, the issue of systemic racism in America will, and should, come to schools around the country. How might we help channel that energy in positive directions? Three weeks ago, P/ATH, a tiny start-up non-profit produced a 59 second video with messages urging action against racism from some [...]
Hopefully we are all growing and learning during this time of social awakening in America. Hopefully we are beginning to understand that all lives can't matter until black and brown lives matter. And hopefully we are learning some skills that help us each to move with humility from where we have been to where we [...]
For at least two decades, the real reason for radical school transformation has not been "jobs of the future". It has been the accelerating rate of change in the world around us. For those who ignored or were complacent with that rate of change, perhaps the last 12 weeks have opened their eyes. Just a [...]
