Piggybacking on last week’s post about knowing your strengths—if you don’t know what skills you have that other people don’t, you typically can’t help them or teach them very well. For example: I’m not good at starting conversations with people I don’t know without context. Not one of my strengths. In a variety of contexts … Read more
I was taking a self-paced course. It was good. Not amazing but solid. There were errors. Significant errors, not typo-type errors. Errors that were changing the quality of my learning from the course. I let the creator know there were a few problems. They were angry and defensive and called my character into question … … Read more
In the last two years and change, Rocket Kid did a fair amount of schooling online, including a full quarter in an online self-guided program. Fortunately, the work was rarely a problem—he typically understood and could complete assignments. How to navigate on the computer? That’s another matter. Much like his course work, I could show … Read more
The short answer: pretty much anything. Parents can and should monitor content but not the delivery system. Your kid likes to read novels? Great! Graphic novels? Great! Magazines? Great! Encyclopedias? Great! Audiobooks? Great! I don’t think it matters. It’s critically important for babies and young children to be read to. While I haven’t been good … Read more
I heard a saying recently: someone who is self-taught is learning from someone who doesn’t know anything. Ha. Very clever. Most people who I know who are self-taught use resources created by people who know stuff, they’re just not in a formal class or studying with a teacher. And those who just dive in and figure … Read more
A meme floating around social media: Now that people can make 20 million dollars a year playing video games on YouTube, it’s getting harder and harder to convince kids that education is important. Wait, what? The sole purpose (or primary purpose) of an education is to make money? This is how it’s been framed much … Read more
“Smart kids” tend to be held on a pedestal, and we overlook or misdiagnose their struggles. If they’re smart, they should be able to figure it out! And if they don’t, they’re lazy. Simply not true. I don’t like the “smart kids” label, but that’s for another day. An important detail I’ve learned about working … Read more
While teachers in general are underpaid and under-respected, I’ve long said that if only one little slice of us were to receive more cash and glory, it should be the kindergarten teachers. For one year, kindergarten classes took up half of my schedule as a traveling music teacher, and it was during this time that … Read more
As a beginning band teacher, I often heard people say that my students didn’t need instruments of good quality because the kids didn’t know how to play anyway. That’s exactly why they need good quality. Because they don’t know what they’re doing, they have no skills to compensate for deficiencies in the instrument. They don’t … Read more
On a tour at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, while looking at the equipment and reproductions of the photographs that were used to discover Pluto, we learned about Clyde Tombaugh, the man behind the discovery. The story as I remember it is that Percival Lowell believed there to be another planet because of oddities in … Read more