marketing manipulation

Marketing, Manipulations and True Classroom Leadership

Earlier this fall I finished reading Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Besides being inspired and challenged in my own leadership, I was deeply taken with his vision for effective marketing or branding: the idea that starting with why the organization exists is the most effective way to inspire excellence and a loyal following. I was first introduced to Simon Sinek by one of my former students. He was working on his Senior Thesis with me, and his topic was the negative ramifications of the smart phone. So naturally he shared with me

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typwriter saying only a writer knows

Writing on Purpose: How Ought We to Instruct Young Writers?

To teach writing is to teach an art form. It takes lots and lots of practice to write well. The way we think about writing can sometimes limit students, so that they don’t gain the practice they need to write effectively. In order to write effectively there are three concepts that should guide our goals as instructors of writing: 1) The Primacy of the Audience 2) Perspective is Power 3) Multiple Styles In teaching an art form, we can tend to focus on the technical aspects of the art, but we also need to take a long-term view of the

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The Search for Happiness, Part 2: The Way of Wisdom

In my previous blog, I examined how modern research, particularly through the avenue of positive psychology, confirms some of Aristotle’s insights about human beings and the well-lived life. In particular, I observed that author Shawn Achor’s definition of happiness as “the joy of striving after our potential” isn’t that far afield from Aristotelian virtue theory.  In this blog, I’ll take a closer look at the notion that virtue is the pathway to happiness through exploring the idea that a person’s everyday habits, not choices, are the building blocks for the happy life. Ultimately, I’ll show, however, that good habits are

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words spelled while playing scrabble

The Flow of Thought, Part 5: The Play of Words

“Words, words, words.” Such was the enigmatic reply of Hamlet to Polonius’ question, “What do you read, my lord?” And as always, Hamlet’s feigned madness displays the ironical insight of a verbal sense of humor. After all, what is anyone reading these days, but merely words, words, and more words? Of course, Polonius interprets this as a depressive comment on the meaninglessness of reading, with a unique philosophical twist. But perhaps it can represent for us an important claim regarding the purpose of education in language and the humanities: words are meant to be played with, not merely learned. In

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brain in internet

Habit Formation: You, Your Plastic Mind, and Your Internet

Shallow. Our brains are shallow. Or at least they have become shallow. This is the point Nicholas Carr drives home in his book The Shallows, where he examined the impact the internet has had on the human brain. Almost at the middle crease of the book, he writes: The information flowing into our working memory at any given moment is called our “cognitive load.” When the load exceeds our mind’s ability to store and process the information—when the water overflows the thimble—we’re unable to retain the information or to draw connections with the information already stored in our long-term memory.

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In Search of Happiness, Part 1: The Road of Virtue

In 1952, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, an Ohio-born pastor who went on to minister for fifty-two years in New York City, published a book that would go on to change his life and career trajectory. The book’s title? I’m sure you’ve heard of it, at least, as an idea. It’s called The Power of Positive Thinking.  Next installment – Part 2: The Way of Wisdom. The book earned a coveted place on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 weeks, 48 of which sitting at the top for non-fiction. It launched Peale onto the national spotlight, leading him to

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STEM careers scientist in a lab lost in flow of thought

The Flow of Thought, Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games

There’s a lot of talk these days about the war between STEM and the liberal arts (which we are meant to understand as the humanities generally). Often this gets posed as a trade-off between a utilitarian education—training our future engineers, scientists and programmers—vs. a soft education in human skills and cultural awareness. Given the hype for STEM, defending the value of the humanities (as Martin Luther did, for one) is an important move in the broader education dialogue. And it’s one that’s not very hard to make, when there are articles like this one on how Google was planning to

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woman exercising the habit of Bible reading and prayer

Christ Our Habitation: A Consideration of Spiritual Habit Training in Education

I have begun to explore habit training once more. In this post I want to explore what it means to consider students as whole persons and address questions stemming from our being spiritual persons. What does it mean for Christians to apply habit training? The greatest liability of education is an undue focus on the intellect. One of the chief concerns teachers have when they plan their lessons is the conveyance of knowledge. This is indeed an important aspect of teaching. But this is not the only aspect of teaching and perhaps actually not the most important, despite the fact

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Why Luther Believed Christians Should Study the Liberal Arts

What lies at the core of an authentically Christian education? Bible classes, faithful teachers, chapel services, certainly. How about the liberal arts? For many parents of faith, they aren’t so sure. After all, the liberal arts aren’t necessary for coming to faith or remaining in the fold. And in 2019, with a diversified economy, the increase in demand for STEM degrees, and the rising cost of higher education, the liberal arts don’t appear necessary for a successful career either. So what gives? Should Christian parents really care that much about ensuring their children receive a Christ-centered liberal arts education? As

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Attention, Then and Now: The Science of Focus Before and After Charlotte Mason’s Time

The importance of attention for education is almost proverbial. Who has not seen the stereotype of a student staring out the window, while the teacher drones on? Movies and TV shows are filled with it. Everybody knows that a wandering attention and a lack of interest hamper a student’s learning. But we haven’t always paid good attention to the dynamics of focus. Michael Hobbiss, a researcher from the UK on attention, distraction and cognitive control in adolescents, remarked in an interview on the Learning Scientists website, that there’s been too much focus among educators on how to grab students’ attention,

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