For parents who are homeschooling their kids in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and are looking for things to teach their kids, here’s a way to teach even younger kids (grade 3 and up) the principles of the very first scientific law that could be expressed in a mathematical formula:  Boyle’s Law – a...Read More

There’s all this talk of ‘’best practices’’ in education but nobody talks about worst practices.  Here’s something that I think qualifies as a ‘’worst practice’’ – it involves educators’ propensity to teach mostly explicit knowledge as opposed to tacit knowledge.  Scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi bases his understanding of ‘’tacit knowing’’ on the principle ‘’that...Read More

Think of an assessment in school and very likely you’ll think of a teacher handing out some papers with questions on them, and students providing the answers.  In fact, this scenario represents by far the bulk of assessments that teachers give to students.  But, this type of assessment barely scratches the surface of what is...Read More

It’s a well-known fact that many authentic Persian carpets have deliberate mistakes woven into them because of the Islamic belief that only Allah is perfect, and that a perfect carpet would be an insult to Him.  The belief makes it clear that humans are innately imperfect.  Unfortunately, in our American schools, teachers often expect students...Read More

Educator and media critic Neil Postman once remarked that:  ”children enter school as question marks and leave school as periods.”  In other words, kindergarteners and first graders are full of enthusiasm, raise their hands high when asked a question, and respond favorably to new learning activities, but by high school, the zip is gone and...Read More