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The great science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke is known, among other things, for this adage, the third of “Clarke’s Three Laws.” Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think of this often when considering the magic at our fingertips daily – smart phones being the prime example. […]

The first question I want to ask each of my singers when we get started this August is this: Why do you sing? It will be a part of the one-on-one meetings I have with each of them at our retreat, alongside personal goal-setting and general conversation about our year […]

I always say that because I’m the family grocery-shopper, I’ve trained my eyes to not see 75% of the grocery store items – I know what I’m looking for and don’t look at most of the rest. It’s an important skill to build if you want to get into and […]

The first full chapter of Dare To Lead is called “The Moment and the Myths” (it’s the first of five sections in Part One, “Rumbling With Vulnerability”). The core of Dr. Brown’s message is this: Vulnerability is at the core of the change we seek to make through our art and […]

I attended a great lecture today – it was informative and compelling. Unfortunately, it was given to an audience of 20 who were pretty well-informed and had no need of being compelled–they were already on board with the thrust of his speech. It got me to thinking about the need […]

In the Sunday New York Times, and already online, is a great article by Alfie Kohn assessing the true impact of zero-sum testing…on students, on culture, on what and how we teach. A few choice quotes: “A school’s ultimate mission, apparently, is not to help everyone learn but to rig […]

The joke goes, there are only two seasons in Michigan: Winter and Construction. As I see it, there are two seasons for educators, too: Build, and React. React lasts from September to June. The days move so quickly, with so many demands placed on educators time, that the best they […]

Take 10 minutes and breathe. I’m not talking about meditation – we aren’t going to be mindful of our breaths. Not exactly. Take 10 minutes and listen to your breaths. Can you breathe silently? It was my assertion to a choir earlier this year that 10 minutes, invested once, could […]

School years and semesters have a certain feel. A certain number of hours of class time per week, a certain number of weeks in a semester. Exams, midterms, finals. Start again. It’s been my experience that careers, particularly arts careers, don’t have the same feel. I work in projects: nebulous […]

School years are finite: they have a beginning and an end. Learning is infinite: it is bounded only by your time, energy, and interest. With a passionate topic, you could spend ten lifetimes digging ever deeper into a topic “covered” in a one-semester course. I don’t know the solution to […]