I will admit I’ve frequently railed against using business models to design and evaluate schools. There are so many ways schools and businesses are different that attempting to translate one to the other risks assuming children are some kind of consistent raw material that can be transformed into a uniform product. I can see teachers … Continue reading
Tagged with Teresa Amabile …
The Progress Principle Comes to School (or Not)
It is sad, but perhaps not unexpected, that since I recently wrote about discouraged educators, I’ve spent a lot of time coaching a young teacher friend. She’s trying to find her way through an interaction with an administrator that has her questioning whether she belongs in public education at all. The specifics don’t matter because … Continue reading
The Progress Principle at School: One Day at a Time
I hope it’s just me, but I’ve talked to a lot of discouraged educators lately, and it is just September. Why discouraged? Sometimes new laws or policies make an already demanding job even harder. Sometimes schedules are crazy or ceilings drip or test prep eats up far too much time. Sometimes folks feel blamed for … Continue reading
Being the Rat in a Maze
Do you ever have those moments when a principle you know to be true is demonstrated, and you are amazed anyway? Watching eggs being sucked into a bottle or cans being crushed by air pressure do that to me. I know it should happen, but I’m still amazed, especially if I do the experiment myself. … Continue reading