This past Wednesday was the birthday of Shinichi Suzuki, born in Nagoya, Japan, on May 17, 1898. If his name doesn’t immediately resonate with you, perhaps thinking of the violin may help, as he developed a method used to teach even the youngest children to play what is typically considered one of the most difficult musical instruments to learn. Indeed, the “Suzuki method” has since been adapted to almost all musical instruments over the last half century and around the world. I became familiar with Suzuki and his method when our oldest child began learning to play the violin at age five. Since then, I’m not sure anything has...

Maybe it’s because we’re still relatively early in a new school year, which always puts me in mind of learning new things. Or maybe I’m just in a rut and really need a chance to do something different. But whatever it is, I found Matthew Cutts’ TEDTak  on “Trying Something New for 30 Days” just the right thing this morning. I’ve had three experiences like this that were incredibly energizing. First, when my oldest child started Suzuki violin lessons 10 years ago, I took lessons, too. At first this was a requirement of the method of instruction – Suzuki parents normally take 4 or 5 lessons to familiarize them with what will...

I’ve been working through Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide, a really fine book that explores the neuroscience behind how we make decisions. In one of the early chapters, Lehrer describes the role dopamine neurons play in decision-making. Essentially, they are those elements of the brain that register experience and create emotions. Interestingly, these neurons actually learn from experience. That is, they take note of successes and failures and improve their predictive performance (creating an emotion before something actually occurs – pleasure at the sight of an ice cream cone, anxiety when noticing that the back door to the house is...

I titled the category for these recent posts “Teaching,” but I could just as easily titled it “Learning,” as how we teach is greatly shaped by how we believe people learn. In recent years, significant research has demonstrated that we do our best learning when our deepest passion and sense of calling is engages. Among other things, this research argues against employing a model of education shaped by standardized testing – which has little to nothing to do with unique gifts and interests – toward a more personalized, student-centered approach to learning. Of course, attention to the question of how we...

We have, I think, a cultural bias against admitting what we don’t know. It’s as if by admitting our ignorance in a particular subject we undermine our credibility on any subject. I find this particularly true of leaders – whether in a church, corporation, faculty, or family. Perhaps that’s because when we are placed into positions of leadership we feel that it’s our responsibility to live up to this trust. Or maybe it’s simply because if we are leading in our organization it’s precisely because we’ve proven ourselves competent, and so we feel that any demonstration of ignorance calls into question our competence and,...