Most students in school today have never played, and certainly never bought, a music CD. Within a few years after Apple launched the iTunes store a decade ago, sales of CD’s in America had dropped by something like 80%. A similar radical mutation is taking place right now in retail shopping, with widespread shuttering across America [...]
I kept a blog from Tom Olverson pinned to my browser for most of a week, letting it stew to see if I could add anything to what is already a tremendously elegant argument on school leadership. I think I can, but only because I am building on such well-crafted thinking by Tom, and by [...]
Does your school value students who exhibit character, grit, and leadership? Is it in your mission to develop these traits in your students? Probably, and rightly so. But as I and others have urged educators to step back and think deeply about the meaning of the word “grit”, an important article by Susan Cain, writing in [...]
We should all use the term "game-changer" sparingly in education, and probably always preceded by the qualifier "potential. But I believe that the Mastery Transcript Consortium is one of these. When founder Scott Looney first contacted me to discuss this idea more than two years ago, I told him that it deserved this kind of [...]
How great is it that a district superintendent and assistant superintendent take time every week to research, prepare, conduct, edit, and publish a podcast that is shared with hundreds of other educators? What a great example of leading by example as we move into the new era where the "flow" of knowledge is more important [...]
A primary role of education is to give students the skill and wisdom to know how to gain knowledge. A key element of that process for centuries has been the reliance on experts who have invested enormous time, money, and intellectual resources in gaining knowledge and understanding that is deeper, more detailed, and often more [...]
From Dumaguete City, Negros Island, Philippines Changing what we do in schools is uncomfortable, even hard sometimes, certainly complex. But as you ponder the “why, what, and how” of change at your school, in your district, or by your community, as you struggle with the inevitable discomfort and disruptions, take a look at what REALLY complex [...]
The tempest that is Washington D.C. these days provides a puzzle for educators: is it an opportunity for learning, or just too fractious to even touch? What is our role in helping our students to make sense of something, when much of it does not make sense from many traditional perspectives? Are we, as educators and [...]