The Planetary Imperative came into forcus today when I opened www.raingarden.com to figure out what to do with a URL that has been a disappointment, though with much potential, for nearly 20 years. It has been retitled “Lucrative Website For Sale.” Rain Gardens will hardly save the Earth, but restricting water runoff is a step…
Education Reform has been a long way in coming to American schools. Unfortunately almost nobody seems to realize that the problem with education may just be the schools. We try to continue doing what we have always been doing for better than two centuries and expecting better results. It may be time to try something…
Most of yesterday’s effort centered around the much touted school reform movement in education advocating Project-based Learning or PBL for short. The PBL effort is grounded in laudable goals of assisting the learning of 21st Century skills including creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. It is a worthwhile movement away from the linear application of…
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem. John Kenneth Galbraith Living in Minneapolis for the past two years has made possible re-connection with former colleagues at Normandale Community College. My former NCC colleagues were, and still are, an amazing group who, with few exceptions, were talented and committed people. Almost to…
Education beyond secondary school is widely regarded as essential. The questions mostly hinge on what form this post-secondary education should take and how costly or cost-effective it should be. While that is an urgent item of discussion at the family level, it also has international relevance. University World News provides a weekly news aggregation that…
The challenge of understanding contemporary politics is daunting. That Donald Trump is our so-called president is a mystery. I would venture that well over half of Americans are unable to understand how he became president. I still include myself with that half. Blaming the Electoral College system is complicated by nuances that are at once…
This morning I finally ordered a personal copy of a used book, through Amazon, that I have, again, been thinking about recently. The book by Richard Bailey has been elusive while it is frequently intriguing to my imaginations about the future of education. For several years I’ve admired Education in the Open Society – Karl…
May your Yule Log glow throughout the new year. Let it symbolize the flame of learning and yearning for truth. We need all of that next year. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. However I don’t plan to celebrate the mass in any Christian way on Sunday and Monday. Back in September, Patti…
Universal It may be hard to find a bigger word than universal. The universe is infinite and infinitely curved back onto and into itself in an infinite number of ways. When we consider the human condition in the universe there are certain self-evident rights that are universal. The articulation of these rights has a long…
20170922 Innovation At a time in our history when the world is at risk across a spectrum of issues, challenges and fear for the future, schools are increasingly called upon to act as vectors for change. Yet the very institution of the school stands as a significant barrier to fostering those changes that will have…
