Education and Trust: Finland and the USA

Three years ago, at the end of my family's time in Finland, Mika Rantala, then the Head of school at Schildt Upper Secondary School in Jyväskylä, asked me to record a brief video on my reflections after visiting numerous Finnish schools, meeting with teachers, administrators, and students. Having visited many Finnish schools at all levels and...

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An Attempt at Measuring “Class Participation”

I have long been unhappy with the subjective nature of my assessment of students' class participation. Earlier in my career, I simply equated asking and answering questions with successful participation. I also included trips to office hours. But it was clear I was privileging one kind of student: the kind that is assertive, confident, and...

Global Economic and Environmental History in 2 Slides

In the New York Times last Sunday, David Wallace-Wells offered an essay on climate change entitled, "Time to Panic." We have been downplaying the risks of our situation, Wallace-Wells argued, for psychological and political reasons. Now, as he quotes David Attenborough, "If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of...

Has Good Teaching Changed?

I wonder: when is my teaching helping to shape ethical, thoughtful, happy human beings? When am I (doing a good job, maybe) teaching to fulfill the demands of the market, of corporate future employers, of educational fashion, of the latest branding initiatives of influential schools? I have written here before about the dangers of so-called...

Beginning a Schoolwide Recycling Program Was Easier Than I Expected

With the help of students and colleagues, I am trying to bring consistent, accurate recycling to the school where I teach. And I am attempting to teach students about recycling--by having them do it together. * * * On January 1st of this year, recycling in Oregon changed. We had been shipping much of our...

Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Natural Causes” and the Education of Teens

How do we equip our students to grapple with the great questions? At my school, I notice two, maybe three, parallel but different tracks of daily conversation connecting students to the philosophic plane: there appears to be consensus around a therapeutic notion of an independent "self" seeking mind/body wellness as well as a public identity...

How Can I, a Single Teacher in a Single School, Counter Global Trends in Student Culture?

We see it in the USA. I read about it happening abroad. Something is happening at our schools, among our students. What is "it?" It's difficult to figure out what is a symptom, what is a cause, and what is a problem--or which problems are at the core. The fraying of academic communities; an opening...

A Livable Future for All on Earth?: A New Report Offers a Plan–and Some Hope

As a teacher and a parent, I lament the absence of clear, positive visions for the future offered to young people by the media, the world of politics, or even from the arena of social activism. We older people have dumped a pile of terrifying problems in the laps of our children's generation without offering...

School T-shirt Sourcing Report and Recommendations

Linked below is the report my students produced on sourcing T-shirts for our independent school. A few people asked for a link to the report, so here it is. Catlin Gabel School T-Shirt Report and Recommendations, Class of 2018 The document was researched and written by secondary school students. My role was to facilitate their...