Browsing: Education

Last week, @TheAtlantic magazine ran a piece called “Introverted Kids Need to Learn to Speak Up at School,” by Jessica Lahey.  They have graciously agreed to run my response, which includes five suggestions for how shy kids can be encouraged to speak up for themselves in the classroom. ➤ Help Shy Kids – Don’t Punish Them [...]

Wow. The last post on group work drew a huge number of thoughtful and passionate comments, most of them critical of the process. But within the criticism, some of you mentioned situations where you do enjoy collaborating, and feel it’s constructive. I thought it would be useful to pinpoint the scenarios when group work works [...]

The photo above — which shows students working on one of the “group projects” that have become so ubiquitous  in American education — makes me feel very lucky that I am not in school today. Having to work in so large and close a huddle would make life not worth learning. And it takes a [...]

“…but we’ve never been able to figure out how to do it.” Until now. So says Salman Khan, the lovable math nerd behind the much celebrated Khan Academy, in which students teach themselves math and other subjects via online videos, then work with their teachers individually on the bits they’re struggling with.  Khan Academy has [...]

Here’s an excerpt from a wonderful piece in Feministing by intellectual powerhouse Courtney Martin, questioning whether contemporary feminism makes room for shy or introverted girls. Courtney articulates something I’ve worried about for years – in our efforts to instill confidence in young women, are we promoting an ideal of sassy outspokenness that’s just as confining [...]

When was the last time you watched a political news program whose outlook you didn’t agree with — not to make fun, or to take pleasure in criticizing, but because you sincerely wanted to learn something? If you’re like most people, the answer is probably “never,” or thereabouts. The U.S. has famously divided into red and blue [...]

One of the luckiest things that ever happened to me was being born into a family that elevated reading to a religious activity. The weekly trip to the library was a form of Sabbath observance in our house. Then there was the yearly pilgrimage to London, which we visited with an empty suitcase reserved for [...]