Last week I was working with a team of business school professors meeting in their annual retreat to plan their teaching for an integrated introduction to their MBA program. The professors themselves come from all facets of the business world: logistics, accounting, organizational behaviour, ethics, marketing. The often use the terms “hard” and “soft” skills, but only in reference to the stereotypes they are trying to confront in their students. It’s always interesting to me to see where “hard” and “soft” skills blur, because in practice they truly do blur. In general “hard” skills refer to those practices in business …
A few days ago I posted an entry on why banning homework would be a good idea. Today, after an interview with a reporter and a nice session with a photographer, we’re on the front page of the National Post. Reporter Anne Marie Owens contacted me after I posted on the topic and followed up on some of the comments over at Rob Paterson’s blog (where all the good conversation is on this stuff). Anne Marie used a couple of us to illustrate a nice review of recent research on the topic. Those that read here know that we engage …
From whiskey river Only to a magician is the world forever fluid, infinitely mutable and eternally new. Only he knows the secret of change. Only he knows truly that all things are crouched in eagerness to become something else and it is from this universal tension that he draws his power. — Peter Beagle
My friend Alex Kjerulf today has a post about homework that I am in complete agreement with. He points to this TIME magazine story which, to an unschooling parent, is no news at all. I already don’t send my kids to school, which we can do here in Canada. It’s called unschooling. BUT if for some reason my kids did go to school I would do what I have advocated others do and that is, I would refuse to allow the school to assign them homework. It is not simply the fact that kids are overworked. There are four other …
Been quiet here the last couple of weeks but not in my life. Two weeks ago I visited The Shire near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to teach with Toke Moeller, Sera Thompson and Tim Merry in the Art of Hosting. It was a beautiful time, working on the land, working with people from Yarmouth, Montreal and the eastern US who are doing deeply important work with youth, food and community. And it was great working with my mates. A couple of pieces have showed up around the web about this training. Here is a post from Brian Hurlburt, a truly generous …