Yesterday: a profoundly misguided article in the Guardian claiming that schools should stop weighing kids down with knowledge and set them free in a world of problem solving. Misguided because you can’t think critically about things you don’t have knowledge about–which almost proves the point. You write misguided articles about learning when you don’t know…
Thinking is not learning. Thinking is part of the learning process but not all of it. Just striving for lots of thinking or even deep thinking in classrooms won’t necessarily result in learning. Maybe that’s obvious to you. It wasn’t to me for a long time and I suspect in that regard I’m not unique among…
I’ve been thinking a lot about reading lately, and not just students’–my own as well. This week EducationNext ran a review I wrote of Maryanne Wolf’s Reader Come Home, it was a review about an immensely important book that was also one of the most soul-searching things I’ve written in some time. Here’s an excerpt…
We’ve had a series of great conversations this year with out colleague Steve Chiger, Director of 5-12 Literacy at Uncommon Schools. Topic: Knowledge and how to infuse more of it, more successfully into English lessons. One of the challenges of knowledge of course is that all knowledge is not equal. Some things are more important than…
There’s been quite a bit of chatter about Steve Kerr’s decision to “let the warriors coach themselves” this week. (Coverage here and here) I wanted to share a couple of thoughts. This was a neat move. Giving players leadership and ownership over their endeavors, done right, can be very powerful. And Kerr spoke about wanting…