Escaping Education’s Death Valley

There are few people I enjoy listening to more than Ken Robinson. An educator and expert on creativity, he is the author of the excellent book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, and his TED Talk on schools and creativity has been watched by more people than any other Talk. In this presentation, he offers both a candid description of why our current education is failing us as well as clear suggestions for making it better. The reason education is such an important topic, of course, is that it doesn’t just affect children and their parents, but all of us. Education shapes the emerging generation, the generation we will...

Every Child Needs a Champion

“Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” This is just one of Rita Pierson’s statements that is funny, insightful, and right on the target. She was responding to a colleague’s comment that, “They don’t pay me to like kids; they pay me to teach the kids. I teach; they should learn. Case closed.” Except, as Rita explained, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” At the core of Rita’s educational and pedagogical philosophy is one simple but powerful conviction: education is about connection. It’s hard to learn if you don’t feel connected. Which means that kids don’t just need a teacher, they...

Teaching with Story

Every time Tyler DeWitt mentions “science” in the following TEDTalk, think “Bible” or “theology.” Because the problem he’s describing – the incomprehensible and jargon-laden nature of science textbooks that make science so incredibly boring that no middle schooler wants to...

Why I Blog

Last week a good friend and colleague asked me why I blog. It wasn’t a “what’s the point” kind of question but more of a “what keeps you going” query. He then pointed me to a great post along similar lines by Katya Andresen, host of “Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog.” All of...

Story Secrets

If there’s a theme to this week’s posts, it’s probably that stories matter. The stories we care about we tell and retell, not always the same way but allowing the dominant media of our culture to help us tell them again and anew. Similarly, the truly great stories aren’t just continued...

Schools, Factories, ...

Seth Godin is nothing if he is not one to push the boundaries. By nature or training or experience, he can’t help but challenge the conventional wisdom – about marketing, about leadership, and now about education. Earlier this year, Seth released a free ebook called Stop Stealing Dreams,...