Last week my family played a game to see if we could name all 197 nations in 15 minutes or less. In our first attempt, we reached 136 – our baseline. We wanted to improve. So we decided that the fastest typist in the family should enter data. [Sidebar: That led us to another competition: …
UNICEF published a six-point plan to act quickly on the risk of a lost COVID generation. Its warning is dire: “Unless the global community urgently changes priorities, the potential of this generation of young people may well be lost.” Priority #1 for UNICEF? “Ensure all children learn, including by closing the digital divide.” This threat …
Yesterday, March 23, 2020, the governor of Virginia announced that school facilities throughout the state would be closed for the rest of the academic year to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Overnight, we have become a state of homeschoolers – joining many other states that are seeking to “flatten the curve” of disease transmission …
Secondary schools and their students need a clear goal or telos to flourish. If the goal is “finish high school” or “get into college” or even “get into a selective university,” the goal is extrinsic, and the learning itself is devalued. Magnet schools and programs don’t have this struggle. Their telos can be STEM, liberal …
The goal of a high school could be for students to know their city Read More »
I have an irrepressible curiosity about learning. How does it work? How much of it depends on the learner? The teacher? The environment? How are learning and personality related to each other? How are learning and temperament intertwined? Are learning and character linked? If so, which one impacts the other? This blog is a place …
Mastery of any skill follows a predictable pattern. There are three essential elements of progressive mastery of any skill. The first element is effort. It is easily visible to any youth soccer coach. If your players put in 50% effort to skill development in practice, they will progress toward mastery of the core skills of …
Mediocrity is normal, because mastery requires sustained effort and focus. In the vast majority of our activities, mediocrity is good enough. I make eggs most mornings for breakfast. I make fried eggs, omelets, or scrambled eggs, depending on the day. All of them are good enough – but not truly excellent. I haven’t committed to …
My friend Rebecca has worked in community development in our city for nearly two decades. She knows and loves the children and families that she serves, and her heart breaks for them as she sees the same pattern repeated again and again: low-income mother-headed households with no way out. The Money: How hard is it? In one …
2 Gen Cville – helping families out of poverty, 2 generations at a time Read More »
How often do you see campaign leaders to opposing presidential candidates writing a joint memo? I can’t remember seeing one before. Jim Messina (D) and Kevin Madden (R) have broken that trend creatively and constructively in this joint memo. They argue that not only is early childhood a sphere in which there is strong electoral …
Character Matters Educational journalist Paul Tough has written an important book on education, early childhood, and character called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. It appears on my recommended reading list. Tough makes a compelling case for the role of early experiences in forming character, which in turn powerfully shapes …