Do you want to capture all of the skills for a successful lifetime of learning in one place? Can we teach collaboration, communication, questioning, synthesis, and all the rest, all at once and even to very young students? Sure. Just be John Hunter. John was on CBS this morning talking about his book “World Peace [...]
I was just watching a video of a talk by Tony Wagner at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta. Dr. Wagner is one of our most often-cited experts on the changing field of education, and rightly so. He has written a number of books on the subject, which help to translate the critical need for changing [...]
How much time and treasure does your school spend on creating master plans for campus facilities, capital campaigns, marketing and communications, strategic plans, and accreditation reviews? Go ahead, count it all up. I know; I have done them all. Over a 5-10 year period it is a TON of money and focus. For most larger independent schools [...]
Was it Mark Twain who said something about it being easy to write a long story and hard to write a short one? No? Somebody smart and something like that. For my first-ever TEDx talk, the strict 18-minute limit was a stern master. I worked five times harder getting the talk down to 18 minutes [...]
Three deeply intertwined strands of thought blew in through the blogosphere and Twitter feed in rapid succession yesterday. Any or all of these would make rich fodder for a faculty workshop or administration team reading. I received the links because earlier in the week I wrote a blog post “Join the Flamethrowers”, arguing that incipient [...]
I did two things last week that, just a few years ago, I could not have imagined. I spoke to a group of teachers gathered in Philadelphia, without leaving my dining room table. And they were math teachers and the subject was the Art of Questioning. Why the sense of breakthrough? First, I was lousy [...]
Those of you who have been following my blog remember posts on The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at St. Andrew's Episcopal Academy in Potomac. MD. They have created a partnership with the Neuro-Education Initiative at Johns Hopkins and have really committed to integrating the latest research on how the brain works into their [...]
What are your 1st graders doing today? Heck, what are your high school seniors doing today? Is it as engaging and full of enthusiasm for learning as what you will see on these short videos from Mary Cantwell and Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School? Is the time your students and teachers are spending in their classes [...]
I wish I were in Philadelphia this weekend, bouncing ideas madly with some of the best educators in America who are attending EduCon in person. But I am forced to watch from afar, view the live-streams and follow the fire hose of Twitter feeds, a window seat voyeur sifting the flow of ideas and vision [...]
Paul Ibsen, Asst. Head for Finance and Management at Providence Day School in Charlotte sent me a digital news clipping and it is worth a read, or forward it to your Foreign Language Chair. As those of you who followed my EdJourney know, a number of schools have found highly engaging ways to move foreign [...]