We’ve all heard this before: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except: no. It’s not inherently or necessarily true. So many things that literally or figuratively try to kill us don’t leave us better or stronger. Cancer didn’t kill me. (Hooray!) Am I stronger? Certainly not physically. I trained with a trainer for several … Read more
I have a student who has been playing an instrument for a week. He came to class completely disheartened and said, “My uncle said I’m never going to be able to play this.” Don’t be that uncle. Of course the kid is struggling and sounds terrible right now. He’s been playing for a week. Instruments … Read more
When someone dies, those close to the deceased have an onslaught of well-wishers. When someone is diagnosed with cancer or another critical health issue, they have a similar herd of well-wishers. When someone has another unfortunate life event, they have immediate help and concern. The thing is … the support dies off well before needed … Read more
A while back, I read a few articles about complaining and how it rewires your brain. Not in a good way. Also a while back, I used to run 30-day challenges on Facebook. Two of those challenges have been “life-changing” as per feedback from people in the group. One was no added sugars (which we … Read more
I wonder why, in a country where everything is about the individual, there is so little emphasis on personal responsibility. Except for people whose bootstraps don’t seem to be working. They should have more personal responsibility. Everybody else…?
I wrote over the weekend about K-12 school standards and their inappropriateness. A loud argument in favor of the standards is “kids need to be ready!” Ready for what? Preschoolers need to learn their letters so they’re ready for kindergarten. But we decided that they need that for kindergarten. It’s top-down. We want them to … Read more
Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of Robin Williams’ death. I remember the date because I wrote something about it on Facebook. (I’m not great any more at remembering dates, and I’m not sure this one would have stuck that specifically regardless.) I’m not much of a movies or TV person, but he was phenomenal. Dead … Read more
One in three children in the US can’t read at grade level. For many people, that means that schools aren’t doing their jobs and we need more accountability and more testing. What if we redefined “at grade level”? I got into this a bit the other day, but we have completely redefined “at grade level” … Read more
We started with The Kid because it was easier. His toys are all in his bedroom except for his LEGOs, which are in “the LEGO Room”—a space in the living room specifically for LEGO. He was having trouble keeping his toys put away. LEGO were mostly in the LEGO Room but not entirely, and rarely … Read more
If we spent as much energy teaching our sons as we do worrying about our daughters, we wouldn’t need to worry so much about our daughters. “Boys will be boys” is a cop-out. It does a disservice to all people. To girls and women, obviously, because it leads to a society where we live in … Read more