We need students who ask questions. We need students who challenge assumptions. We need students who wonder. We need students with a thirst for understanding. We need students who want to find better ways. We need students who reject the status quo. We need students who don’t believe everything they read. We need students who fight against injustice. We need students who don’t accept that “that’s just the way it is.” Continue reading Cultivating Curiosity
Don’t worry. The data centers are coming to save us. Continue reading Pattern Recognition
It took about 20 years to weaponize the Internet. It took about 10 years to weaponize social media. It took less than 5 years to weaponize artificial intelligence. We have to create curious, critical consumers of information. We have to have students who challenge the things that are presented to them as unquestionable fact. We need a populace who doesn’t just “take their word for it.” Information literacy is not the most important thing schools teach. But it’s right behind reading and writing. Continue reading Shamelessly Sure
Screen time limits will address student distraction and compulsive technology use at the expense of using technology in meaningful ways to foster student learning. But it won’t solve the mental health crisis. Continue reading Screen Time
We might think we’re throwing the kid into the deep end to teach them to swim, but we’re actually throwing them into Niagra Falls. Continue reading Swimming Lessons
It’s not enough for technology to help us do things better. We have to make sure it’s helping us do better things. Continue reading A Balanced Approach
I don’t have the imagination to see the amazing future ahead, so it’s time to rely on others to lead us. Continue reading It’s Time
When I was in high school, I had a calculus teacher who would sometimes disparage some of his fixed-mindset colleagues. “In her lesson plans, there’s a week-long gap at the end of November,” he’d say. “It just says ‘No School — Kennedy was shot.’” Of course, he was exaggerating. This was 25 years after the Kennedy assassination. His point was that some teachers seem to … Continue reading Prepared for Anything
Generative artificial intelligence has been with us for a little over three years now. At the time, I called ChatGPT “astonishing” and “revolutionary.” That’s high praise from me. It’s one of the very rare disrupters: it has the potential to change both the why and the what of school. Just like ubiquitous Internet access and Smartphones changed the purpose of school 15 years ago, AI … Continue reading Should We Stop Using AI in School?
Over break, I read “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” an account of Bruce Springsteen’s recording of the Nebraska album. Sandwiched between the successful River tour and the record-breaking Born in the USA album, Nebraska is quiet, simple, contemplative, and depressing. Springsteen wrote the songs and recorded demos of them on his TEAC 144 Portastudio, a “home studio” machine that could make multitrack recordings on cassette tape. … Continue reading Incompatible
“No unread messages in conversations or conferences” It was the message, all those years ago, in the world of dialup and text conferencing, that told you it was time to log off and go do something else. “There’s nothing to see here. You’ve already read everything.” There’s no email to read. There are no new posts in the online communities. You’re at the end. No … Continue reading No Unread Messages
Where is the school? The school that empowers our children to create the better world that we have decided to eschew?The school that fosters curious, lifelong learners?The school that invites skepticism and expects students to point out inconsistencies between the things we say and the things we do?The school that embraces Christian values, and Muslim values, and Hindu values, and Jewish values: that taking care … Continue reading Where is the School?
