“The trick I like best is also the one most commonly recommended by undergraduates in the classes I’m teaching this year—what scientists call situation modification. It involves intentionally changing your physical surroundings to make it easier to resist temptation. Consider, for example, this data collected from thousands of high school students on Character Lab Research Network. The farther students reported keeping their phones when trying to study, the higher their report card grades.”
“Across the country, citizen-led efforts are underway that attempt to bridge the divides created or unearthed by the… presidential election. These efforts are admirable. Done wrong, however, these efforts have the potential to compound our political problems rather than ameliorate them. Profound philosophical divides with deep historical roots exist across the country about the role of government, the job of citizens, how to deal with the economy, and what it truly means to be American. Instead of papering over these differences, we need to understand their origins, grow smarter about engaging them, learn to ask better questions, and get better at arguing with one other about them.”
“We need to stop worrying exclusively about leadership and prepare them for ethical and active citizenship. It is only when we can talk to our students about the need to take less so that others can have their fair share that we will be able to honestly talk about race.”
“I was able to see that every product, every device, was a solution to a real-world issue. But that wasn’t being taught in my classes. We were never taught how to conduct interviews or do ethnographic research to figure out the underlying challenges that needed to be tackled. In other words, we were given the tools to solve problems but never taught how to apply them.”
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