In March, efforts to open an innovative public high school in a diverse, urban district just outside of Boston received a devastating blow. Powderhouse Studios was in the works for seven years, with grand hopes of changing public education from a top-down system defined by coercion to a learner-driven model focused on student autonomy and self-determination. The vision for this school was so compelling that it won a $10 million XQ Super School innovation grant and was positioned to lead efforts to inject freedom into a conventional schooling system characterized by force.
Tag: education
Do the Math
Have you come to the conclusion that we, the people, are innumerate? If not, how do you account for the fantasy of voting or the illusion of government education? One of the major goals of government schooling is the cultivation and advancement of innumeracy. Another major goal, of course, is illiteracy.
Letter from a Pakistani Homeschooler
I recently received this email from Pakistani homeschooler Fasih Zulfiqar. I advised him to seek out econ professors at the nearest universities, but he’d likely appreciate further advice. Reprinted with his permission. Hello Prof Bryan, Fasih here. Perhaps Prof Cowen informed you about me, but in case he did not, let me introduce myself. I’m […]
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Co-Working Meets Co-Learning
Workspace helps to cultivate personal and professional opportunities for parents, while supporting their children.
The Fault Is Not in Our Stuff But in Ourselves
Bruce Sacerdote‘s NBER Working Paper, “Fifty Years of Growth in American Consumption, Income, and Wages” provides a nice update on the measurement of CPI Bias. The punchline should be obvious, but it’s great to hear such an eminent economist say it: “Meaningful growth in consumption for below median income families has occurred even in a prolonged period of increasing income inequality, increasing consumption inequality and a decreasing share of national income accruing to labor.”
Why so Many College Students Are In Mental Distress—And What Parents Can Do about It
More supervision and less autonomy, combined with social media influences, could be making college students more prone to anxiety and depression.
Alfie Kohn: Unconditional Parenting (37m)
This episode features an interview of education and parenting researcher, writer, and lecturer Alfie Kohn from 2009 by Laura Markham of Aha! Parenting. They consider and critique the misguided use of both punishments and rewards in the rearing of children.
Learning Machines
We often observe that young children are amazing learning machines, motivated by boundless curiosity. But we forget that all humans are amazing learning machines, they have just been tampered with by more-or-less well-meaning sticklers. Walk around the sticklers.
Great Tools for Teaching Kids Economics and Liberty
Whenever my children express an interest in economics or are curious about the ideals of freedom and responsibility, I can barely contain my excitement. It wasn’t until college that I discovered, and fell in love with, economics, and it wasn’t until much later that I understood liberty as a life philosophy. Fortunately, I can avoid stifling their budding interest by drawing demand curves or quoting Hayek and Hazlitt (though I’ve been known to do both!) and turn to some outstanding resources just for kids. Designed to introduce economic principles and the foundations of a free society to young children, these tools are interesting, engaging, and easy-to-understand—for children and adults alike!
The Downside of Guns
Recently Scott Adams was caught pretending he is the only person with an actual opinion about guns because he pretended no one else ever considers both the benefits and the downsides, and because no one else will say how many “gun deaths” they are willing to accept in order to preserve the right to have guns.