I’ve argued before that we mostly learn by doing. Yet, if this is true, it creates a puzzle: why has school largely replaced apprenticeships as a mode for learning? The common answer is that apprenticeship works great for smithing and weaving, but modern work is mental. We need years of dedicated training inside the classroom […]

Today’s my birthday. Every year I share a birthday post with some personal reflections. Since this is now the fifteenth year I’ve been doing this, I won’t break tradition. The idea I’ve kept returning to this year is one of consolidation. Some of this is simply the changes imposed by parenthood. As I wrote previously, […]

Why read a book on the science of instruction? We are all teachers, even if most of us aren’t professional educators. Even if you don’t manage a classroom every day, teaching is an essential part of life. At work, you need to give presentations, coach new hires or explain the merits of a proposal to […]

Why is everybody so busy? Nearly a century ago, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted we’d only work fifteen hours a week. Incomes would grow and so would our free time. Except that hasn’t happened. Income rose, but we kept working long hours. Why? One answer is that people like to be busy. This paper […]