We often hear people proudly exclaim, I’m a competitive person! Just what does this mean? Do those who say this really know what it means? Continue reading
Month: February 2011
Where is the Will
The demonstrating in Wisconsin—and the likelihood of the same in other states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania—is brought to us by our societal system of orientation. Continue reading
Take the Education Reformers to Task
In a recent Huffington Post article, Diann Woodard argued for designing an educational system “to equip all children with the skills to exercise sound, independent judgment as workers and citizens will they be successfully educated” and challenged the data-driven business model reformers who advocate for vouchers, charter schools and test scores as the measure of success. Continue reading
Data Should Lead to Understanding
In a Baseline Scenario article titled Bad Data James Kwak stated, “to make a vast generalization, we live in a society where quantitative data are becoming more and more important. Some of this is because of the vast increase in the availability of data, which is itself largely due to computers. Some is because of the vast increase in the capacity to process data, which is also largely due to computers.” Although computers have made the collection and accumulation of data much easier, so much so that we can get overwhelmed with information, computers are not the reason we are unable to understand and use data appropriately. Continue reading
Better Thinking Leads To Better Solutions
What might be the cause of the misuse or misinterpretation of research about education recently brought to light by Alfie Kohn in his January 28th article “Do tests really help students learn or was a new study misreported?” Could this be evidence of what is being learned or not learned in the educational system? Might the education of those—likely with good grades—who report about the problems of the educational system reflect the effects of a system in need of fundamental change? That is, the use of reductionism and correspondingly the many shortsighted answers offered by so many is further evidence of what’s wrong with the educational system. Continue reading
Leadership is Heroic
As many of the previous essays suggest leadership is a rather complex concept—not detail complex but dynamically complex. That is, it is deeply and inextricably connected to our very nature. Accordingly it is a notion that we have conceived to help us in fulfilling a distinctly human need we all share, the need for self-actualization. That is to actualize our potential as human beings. Continue reading
Gregory Gull 