Ideas
Highlights from speaking engagements, interviews and articles
Lives Fully Lived
In this talk, I explore the bedrock principle that animates my work and life—the idea that the individual human life, fully lived, is an end in itself.
Articles
In Defense of School
09/01/2020
The shutdown of schools this past spring, undertaken to limit the spread of COVID, has had an unintended outcome: the sudden and unexpectedly wide scrutiny of the institution of school itself. Pedagogy in particular has emerged as an object of reflection. Witnessing their children participate in distantly second-rate virtual learning, millions of parents are thinking fresh about whether there may be more fundamental concerns about the way their children are schooled.
Book Three: Austin
12/30/2020
I am excited to share that after more than 15 very happy years in Southern California, last week Rebecca and I moved our family to Austin, Texas. We’ll be staying at an AirBnB for a while as we figure out our permanent home, and the kids have already started at a local Guidepost school. This move was a fledgling idea a few months ago, and became a reality very quickly.
Enabling Agency
Montessori is typically seen as a progressive alternative to mainstream education. In fact, Montessori transcends the false choice between progressive and traditional education. It represents a fundamentally different way of approaching human development: it enables agency.
To help explain the core principles of Montessori, and how we implement those principles at Higher Ground, I spoke to Jonathan Torosian on his podcast The New Liberals. Also featuring my colleague Matt Bateman, VP of Pedagogy at Higher Ground.
More videos
The Montessori Multiplier
How the Montessori approach maximizes self-directed learning outside the classroom.
The Goals of Montessori Education
The goals and outcomes of a Montessori education differ from those of traditional systems.