Benjamin Jowett’s  Victorian-era translation of Plato’s, Republic added the flowery language popular at the time to give us, “The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.”  This, of course became the popular proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  A more literal translation of Plato is rendered, “Our need will be… Read More

Ukiah High School Principal, Gordon Oslund, shared the following thoughts in his daily Briefing for faculty today.  As those of us in education work together to provide for the instructional needs of students, I believe Gordon’s words  are a powerful and important reminder that people are more important than programs, and we all need to… Read More

George Couros, education leader, author, and speaker, shared two tweets he has seen that remind him how important it is to create a safe, caring space for students in our schools and classrooms. Despite the slick, social-media facade of a fantastic life that most of our students post online, many of them are living out… Read More

My Grandfather built things. The steel fabrication company he founded built water-filtration tanks for the construction of Disneyland and the emerging industrial economy of China in the 1950s. His generation survived the poverty of the Great Depression, won a global war, and participated in the most profound economic and technological transformation in human history. Their… Read More

  Most of us have worked with difficult people at some point in our life.  Sometimes the reason your coworker is difficult to work with is obvious, but other times it is tough to put your finger on the reason why.  There are just a series of small slights or annoying interactions that create a… Read More

I’ve been immersed in formalized education all but the first five years of my life.  Fourteen years in elementary, middle, and high school (I flunked my first year of kindergarten), more years than I needed in college, and then the rest of my life as either a teacher or school administrator.  Because of this, January… Read More

If you Google, “Kids who changed the world,” you will find many websites and stories about, well, kids who have changed the world.  From activists to researches, to entrepreneurs, the one thing each of these young movers and shakers has is common is the ability to apply their intellect to the task of creating something… Read More

I was having a conversation with a teacher recently who was upset about a student who had been given the ability to take a test at home, because he was out for a prolonged illness.  They explained that she felt there was just no way to be sure the student didn’t just Google the answers. … Read More

I am sharing a guest blog today by my friend and colleague, Bruce Knox, Secondary School Director at International College, in Beirut Lebanon.  Bruce gets the whole “Learning by Doing” thing and is an educator who leads by doing as well.  He has been an inspiration to me and impacted my thinking on education and… Read More

“According to UNESCO, the number of people gaining formal educational qualifications in the next 30 years will exceed the gross total since the beginning of history. As a result the market value of degrees is tumbling. Something more is needed to edge ahead of the crowd” (Robinson, 2001-2011). For years now, the U.S. education system… Read More