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

What is tacit knowing?  As I pointed out in my last blog post, it’s ”knowing more than we can tell.” One of the best examples comes from oral language.  We all learned to speak based on tacit learning experiences. How is it that we can effortlessly put one word right after the other without breaking...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

I’m getting fed up with the term ”data-driven instruction” that I keep hearing and reading about in the educational media.  To help articulate exactly why the word conjures up such a disagreeable sensation in my gut, I’ve listed seven reasons why the word should be stricken from every educator’s vocabulary. ”Data-driven instruction” is a term...Read More

A lot of recent research supports the systematic teaching of phonemic awareness in beginning reading programs.  The problem is that phonics lessons can get awfully dull, with teachers pointing to the letter and having kids say the sound, or students poring over phonics worksheets that ask them to match the right letter to the word,...Read More