Thinking About Education

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. ~Socrates

“Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.” ― Daniel H. Pink

  Autonomy. This is a vital characteristic of a satisfying human life. As interdependent as we and other creatures of the earth are in our communal and global ecosystems, each healthy life system is also organized around some principle. As humans, for example, we make choices, we determine what we will or will not do, or how we will relate to the larger system of which we are a part. According to Daniel.. Read More

First Do No Harm: The Damage of Low Expectations

I had a student once, let’s call her Leah.  She was a transfer during the first few weeks of school. We were alerted that she had some “problems.” I always begin the year with a study of word stems, and expect students to learn certain common roots, prefixes, and suffixes because then they have a base for understanding thousands of words. They memorize 10 or 15 at a time—a list like this one:.. Read More

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