Rewriting Paradigms

This weekend’s Job Market Column, “Make Way for Generation Z,” by Alexandra Levit intrigued me frankly because of the overall optimism of the piece. Given today’s heated educational climate, with all the focus on and anxiety over testing, for example, I was surprised by all the positivity. To be honest, I don’t hear too many of the Gen Zs in my own personal orbit expressing a great deal of optimism. Levit noted that this group of kids, the Gen Zs (born between 1990 and early

Last week I heard Guy Kawasaki talk about his passion for writing, his two latest books: “The Art of the Start-Up 2.0” and “The Art of Social Media,” as well as the updated MVP (Minimally Viable Product) model. During his livestream interview withStartup Grind’s founder Derek Anderson, Kawasaki reiterated his appreciation of the Lean Startup model and provided details on the two additional “Vs” he hoped might strengthen Eric Reis’s model. As Kawasaki says, “The concept is tha

Last night’s tribute concert to David Byrne was the 11th show in Michael Dorf’s “Music of” series that benefits a number of music education groups in New York City. Each of the concerts in the series has yielded about $100,000. With all proceeds going to the beneficiaries, that’s about $1,000,000 so far. The money is obviously a critical driver for these concerts, and the organizations that benefit from the funding contribute in diverse ways to music education in the city. Th

“He climbed with partners now and then but mostly spent time by himself and free-soloed — first on easy routes and then, as his confidence grew, on steadily more difficult terrain. Honnold lived this way for two years, continuing to study climbing history and the rarefied lineage of great free-soloists past, a grand total of three people over 30 years.” “The Heart-Stopping Climbs of Alex Honnold” Alex Honnold is at 29 years old the world’s best free-soloist, which means that

Do you consider the current changes in education to constitute evolution or revolution? A few years ago, in a white paper titled “Evolution, Not Revolution” I examined the then current changes in educational technology and the impact on the profession overall, especially on teachers. At that point, I was convinced that while changes may seem startling for some, they were moving us incrementally toward a more refined practice in which teachers could finally do what they do bes

Think back to your kid self, and consider the news this week that a Kip’s Bay, New York elementary school has stopped assigning traditional homework. The majority of us, as our kid selves, would probably have rejoiced at this news. Yet, the announcement has infuriated members of the school community and is fueling several different debates, mainly that around the intrinsic value of homework. What is Good about Homework? Like many of the arguments we are engaged in today aroun

What do Tom Hanks, Chris Rock, Walt Disney, James Dean, George Lucas, Teri Hatcher, Eddie Murphy, and Halle Berry have in common? They all attended community college but never finished. The same thing is true for 66 to 80 percent of students who enroll. But clearly, they don’t all end up with careers in the movies. This week’s NY EdTech’s “Community College Spotlight: Edtech at 2-Year Schools” illuminated the challenges for those who attend and operate these schools and prese

We’re frequently presented with approaches to teaching and learning as if they are somewhat new. Or there’s a new study defending the efficacy of the approach as if it had never been proved effective before. For example: Social learning. Emotional learning. Democratic learning. All sound, valuable concepts. But if we look back, we can see some genesis for these methodologies in earlier pedagogical constructs. When I was in grad school, I was introduced to the work of Paolo Fr

We’re frequently presented with approaches to teaching and learning as if they are somewhat new. Or there’s a new study defending the efficacy of the approach as if it had never been proved effective before. For example: Social learning. Emotional learning. Democratic learning. All sound, valuable concepts. But if we look back, we can see some genesis for these methodologies in earlier pedagogical constructs. When I was in grad school, I was introduced to the work of Paolo Fr

Social entrepreneurism is a goal to which many of us aspire, but how do you even start? The team at Goodnik has made it their business to help promote social entrepreneurism, as their mission statement says “by bringing not-for-profit and private companies together to share resources and ideas about better ways to do business.” They hold workshops, connect new business owners with established partner companies and host these meetups so that people can share their projects, ge