Besides being creative, innovative, wildly successful and new-age businesses (that weren’t even dreamed of 30 years ago), do you know what Google, Amazon, Wikipedia & Sim City have in common? The founders of these companies (two at Google) have Montessori educations, says Peter Sims in the Wall Street Journal. What is “a Montessori education?” Although [...]
Intelligence
I sometimes wonder why so much of what is considered “good literature” for ourselves and for students has to be dark, depressing, or unhappy. I’m not against stories in which something bad happens, but knowing that bad news seizes and clings, while good news slides right off us, I like to prime myself with uplifting [...]
“Bring back Vo-Tech” and “Not everyone needs to go to college—some people would be better in the trades.” These are two comments I often hear when I speak about Gifts that Conflict with School™, The Myths of Education™, or Race to Nowhere. Now, those of you who have been on my calls or in my [...]
Note: This is the third article in The Myths of Education™ series. Some babies walk at 10 months and others don’t walk until 17 months. Right from the start, we have a 70% performance gap, yet we accept this as normal so we don’t insist on rating babies’ walking skills. We understand that by the [...]
Note: This is the second article in The Myths of Education™ series. Have you ever wondered why we urge teens to be the best possible student? Many parents, leaders, and educators say it’s because they believe this will get him into the “best” colleges and — the big assumption — that this will lead to [...]
A “significant majority” of the 5000 self-made British millionaires struggled in school, says a BBC study. Think about that for a moment. One of the myths we tell about education is that kids who struggle in school are not smart, have learning disabilities, or are just plain lazy. Yet, I imagine these terms don’t normally [...]
The future looks very bright for our teens– when we de-bunk three false, damaging myths. In a recent study, I found that—no matter what their GPA—teens will have great opportunities because world, corporate, and scientific prospects depend on a far broader set of characteristics than those we emphasize in our system of education. I’d like [...]
Imagine you were asked to help improve the future prospects of Jill, a high school junior with a GPA of 2.0 who daydreams in English, History, and Spanish. What would you advise Jill to do? a) Get screened for a learning disability and, if needed, take medication to focus. b) Visualize a report card with [...]
Failure does not breed success when it comes to the brain, according to MIT scientist Earl Miller whose study of monkeys is cited in the Boston Globe article of August 3, “Why success may breed success.” When a correct response is rewarded, higher-intensity signals fire between the two learning areas of the brain. This increases [...]
This is the first episode in a new video series: how to create positive change and resilience in students. In this clip: 18-year-old Anna doesn’t like school, science or textbooks. She wants to motivate herself to finish high school. One step you can take with someone who doesn’t like school is to identify ways s/he [...]