If you close your eyes and visualize a typical high school classroom, chances are you’ll be imagining a class where students are sitting at desks listening to a teacher lecture or working on written assignments.  Now we’re learning that this scenario may increase the risk of depression in adolescents.  A new study in the journal...Read More

In this blog post, I’d like to talk about what they call ‘’value added’’ measures in school reform.  Basically, this means judging teachers according to the standardized test results that their students get over the course of the year.  First, let me say something about the term ‘’value added’’ because at first glance an unassuming...Read More

When I was seven years old, I was at the local barbershop in my hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, when I picked up a Life Magazine that had Anne Frank on the cover (August 18, 1958 – see image on the left).  I remember looking through the magazine and seeing pictures of people with black...Read More

Our culture is a speed-driven culture. We celebrate individuals who race fast cars (even when they die in them).  We eat fast food.  We are clock-driven at work.  We like the idea of accelerated learning.  I just googled the term ‘’accelerated learning’’ and found scores of sites, books, programs, and other paraphernalia that put a...Read More

Jean Gebser (1905-1973) was a German philosopher, linguist, poet, and autodidact who wrote The Ever-Present Origin, an interdisciplinary survey of human and cultural consciousness that was decades ahead of its time.  His integral perspective did not deal with the stages of a human life per se (e.g. birth to death), but rather focused on the...Read More