arrange • compose • conduct
How do you enter the world? In The West Wing’s third season, the episode title “The U.S. Poet Laureate” features Laura Dern as new poet laureate Tabitha Fortis. She says the following near the end of the episode: “You think I think that an artist’s job is to speak the […]
Today, I could take a test in pretty much any high school math class and earn a passing grade. People are almost always surprised that I can still perform trigonometry, algebra, geometry, removed over a quarter century from my last math class. Doing math isn’t the superpower. But being genuinely […]
Sometimes you’re just excited for a weekend to work. I’ve been doing exciting projects on a lot of fronts, with weekends spent away at retreats, leadership training, and so on. My days are packed with the stuff of life, and it’s all really good stuff. As we move toward the […]
Do you produce a seasonal product? I live in a place with lots of season producers. Apple orchards, or Christmas tree farms. It always strikes me as pretty strange to work in an industry where so much of your income comes in a short window. They sell Christmas trees from […]
There is a time before you’re good at anything when you’re trying it for the first time. Here’s a word for the feeling that goes with it. Trying something new – putting yourself out there – is scary and exciting. Our family has adopted the Glennon Doyle portmanteau of scited […]
Last year, psychologist Adam Grant introduced us to the idea of languishing – a feeling he describes as “a sense of emptiness, stagnation and ennui.” He called it “‘the neglected middle child of mental health’ and […] suggested it might be the dominant emotion of our time.” (You can watch his […]
This year, I’ve gotten more insistent to my students who are involved in multiple extracurriculars: I ask me to send them their sports or other schedule and a plan for equitable balance. The secret is, I often can and do look at their schedules myself. (They’re all online!) But I […]
It’s not because they can’t…and it reflects a philosophy about teaching. My middle- and high-school aged kids get a lunch packed, complete with a daily note, as they walk out the door. I’ve made sandwiches on homemade bread, packed their bags with a balanced meal, and put it out for […]
Don’t pursue the career where you have the strongest skill. The most successful among us have a constellation of skills in the same skill area. A constellation is just a grouping of stars that suggest a shape because they’re clustered together in the sky. Likewise, successful people have multiple skills […]
Easy questions have right answers. Hard questions have better answers, but not necessarily one right answer. In that context, educators need to make sure we aren’t making a false equivalency by always rewarding the quickest answers. Quick answers are great in multiplication problems, but for anything of lasting impact, the […]