The happiness of adulthood is not as intoxicating as the rapture of youth, but is perhaps more valuable because it is not narcissistic and thus can be truly shared. After doing the dishes, my fiancee and I sit on the couch with nothing but the Christmas lights on, listening to the sound of cars of Chapel Street. We sit there with the long day finished, our shapes reflected on the window, dark masses surrounded by speckles of light inside a room of no great size. And I think, This is enough. But something pricks me from inside. The question: Will I ever change the world. I remember what I had aspired to be three years ago: a hero like Hercules or Prometheus.”
Behavioral science has identified four discrete accountability mechanisms: evaluation, identifiability, reason-giving, and the mere presence of another. Good professional accountability practices will employ all four behavioral mechanisms, though in various ways. Consider the practice of medicine: Doctors must pass a series of exams to be certified for practice (evaluation); board certifications for specializations are publicly reported (identifiability); medical rounds require doctors to explain cases and treatment plans to their colleagues (reason-giving); and surgery is conducted with other hospital staff attending (mere presence of another).”
In non-science terms, the group who did interval training experienced changes that increased both the amount and the health of their mitochondria–especially the people in the older age group.”
If we understand the inherent structural inequalities that lurk below the surface of emotional labor, we might all hesitate before asking teachers and students to pledge their allegiance to passion and grit.”
Enviable as the cool kids may have seemed, Dr. Prinstein’s studies show negative consequences.”
For years, studies upon studies have shown how bad sleep weakens the immune system, impairs learning and memory, contributes to depression and other mood and mental disorders, as well as obesity, diabetes, cancer and an early death. (Sedated sleep — hello Ambien — has been shown to be as deleterious as poor sleep.)”
But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.”
During high school, their first class every day is taught in a room on U.S.C.’s campus, so that college is demystified and becomes a fixed part of their vocabularies.”
I’m baffled by the idea that reaching a wider audience involves using smaller words, as if there’s some inverse correlation between the size of your audience and of your vocabulary.”
Copyright
Every week I send out articles I encounter from around the web. Subject matter ranges from hard knowledge about teaching to research about creativity and cognitive science to stories from other industries that, by analogy, inform what we do as educators. This breadth helps us see our work in new ways.
Readers include teachers, school leaders, university overseers, conference organizers, think tank workers, startup founders, nonprofit leaders, and people who are simply interested in what’s happening in education. They say it helps them keep tabs on what matters most in the conversation surrounding schools, teaching, learning, and more.
– Peter Nilsson