My Note:  During my recent trip to the Philippines, I did a number of media interviews (television, print, and online).  Here is an article that came out of one such interview.  It appeared at www.InterAkyson.com, the online news portal of TV 5 in Quezon City, Philippines: Educator warns: Be wary of schools preparing kids for ‘next level,’ focus...Read More

During my recent visit to the Philippines, I had the pleasure of visiting two exemplary schools that meet my definition of “best schools” as described in my book The Best Schools:  How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice.  They were the Explorations Preschool and its sister school, the Keys Grade School, both in Mandaluyong, part...Read More

When Albert Einstein was four, his father gave him a simple magnetic compass for his birthday.  Later on, in adulthood, Einstein wrote that this simple toy served to unlock his feelings of curiosity and wonder about the world   He said that from that time on he was filled with a desire to ferret out the...Read More

I fly a lot, and when I travel I see a lot of people carrying teddy bears in the airport; not just children; adults too.  Everytime I see somebody carrying one onto a plane, I think of the idea of the “transitional object.”  This term was coined in 1951 by the psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott.  It’s...Read More

I’ve written a book for educators called The Best Schools: How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice (publisher:  The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, December, 2006).  In this book I suggest that our educational climate has become totally overwhelmed by what I call an “academic achievement discourse.”  This discourse concentrates on accountability, rubrics,...Read More