2024-12-10
Learning How To Learn, suggested to me my Melanie.
The first part of the book was too dense for me. But when the book gets into how the Montessori classroom works, the role of the child and the role of the teacher, it really shines. It is a continuous struggle for me not to expect my children to behave as adults.
Some gems:
Children are taught to speed up their performance by an emphasis on completing a task or test accurately within a fixed time. The young child has, in his own view, all the time in the world. And he needs this time. And he needs this time. The number of perpetually harassed mothers who tell their children to stop dawdling and get it finished, whether ‘it’ be supper or dressing, is legion.
The action has merit above and beyond the actual physical fact of the child’s accomplishment. It has the merit of allowing the child to participate in the society in which he finds himself, not at the level of an adult, but at the level of an emerging individual. The importance of a strong sense of self can be seen when we think of the tasks which will be demanded of an American child of three in a few short years. The ability to work independently, to continue to accomplish, whether or not the adult is physically present at one’s elbow at all times, the ability to initiate work because one has had previous successful experience, are important learning skills for a child. Many children are so conditioned by adults that they will refuse to attempt anything new until they have been given either explicit directions by an adult or, what is more frequent, explicit approval to do so by an adult.
The rhythm of the child is a rhythm different from the adult. The child works at a thing until he is satisfied. The teacher has no foolproof way of knowing when this point is reached. The teacher must constantly guard against over-teaching and over-correcting—correcting a child who is unaware that he has made an error, intervening to show a child how to improve a skill he has barely learned. Respecting at all times the child’s right to help himself, and to solicit help only when he feels it is needed, requires tremendous patience.
2024-10-11
Things I learned: “the Milky Way builds between two and six sun-size stars a year.” Quanta Magazine.
My friend Alex Komoroske on Lenny’s Podcast. Alex is in the top 5 most influential people on my career in the past 5 years.
Henrik Karlson on how Jesuits and Montessori schools teach and scale culture.
The Swiss border is changing due to climate change.
“But the truth is that kids are more like artificial neural networks — they’re at a subtly different point in mind-space, they’re good and bad at different things than adults are good and bad at.” The Psmiths.
The story of how Dr. Zhivago got published. One of the most haunting books I’ve ever read. A reminder that civilization can collapse before your eyes.
How Jason Crawford chooses what to work on.
Speed Matters. “Being 10x faster also changes the kinds of projects that are worth doing.”
2024-06-25
When I was growing up, I never used first names with adults. The adults in my life were "Mr. Knabe", "Mrs. Stanley", or "Dr. Woods".
Adults reinforced this norm as well. When I met my parents friends, they introduced themselves — in a friendly way — as "Mr. Brinker" rather than Chris. The same with teachers — I had "Mrs. Bryson", not "Deborah".
My parents would’ve corrected me had I tried something else. I’m sure they probably did at some point, but I don’t remember it happening. It wasn’t notable, it’s how the world was. In lots of cases, I'm not even sure I knew the first names of my parents friends until I graduated from college and then someone like Mr. Hehn would say, "please, call me Gunther" in a way that communicated I was now an adult too. This made me feel proud. The only exceptions I can think of here are my Pastors (Jerry) and family (Aunt Julie and Uncle Bert).
As far as I can tell, this has completely gone out of fashion.
With my kids, 2 and 4, no adult uses their last name. My friends introduce themselves as Mr. Jon and Ms. Veronica, not Mr. and Mrs. Flash. I do this too — I introduce my friends to them as Mr. Graham and Mr. Ted not Mr. Rowe and Mr. Strong. Even my daughter’s teacher is Ms. Heather not Ms. Jones. I assume this will change as they enter the formal school system… but who knows!
This new behavior is so consistent that if an adult that I knew well introduced themselves to my child as Mr. Banna instead of Mr. Rami, it would seem overly formal, like wearing a tuxedo to an office.
This doesn’t bother me on a moral level but I am intensely curious about it. When did it change? Why? I assume it’s related to the broader decline of formality in our culture, the way that the hoodie has replaced the sports coat for menswear.
But what is driving this? Is it a desire to be youthful? Relatable? A way of communicating that adults and children are on the same level? As we’ve made this switch, what have we given up? Anything? Nothing? Does this change how children perceive adults? Does it change how children perceive themselves?
I’d love to hear a theory of the case here.
2023-06-22
We should be thinking much harder about ensuring children can make meaningful contributions, and we should be teaching them in ways that are sensitive to the context of the real world. We are not looking for a job but opportunities for mastery: learning and practice beyond the depth one would find along the common path, which demands no such thing.
That is from Simon Sarris's article in Palladium about how a schooling isn't enough for young people.
At this point, probably my most unconventional belief is that we should be giving teenagers more apprenticeship opportunities at companies. I feel weird saying this because it sounds like I want to return to a world where children worked in coal mines, which is very much not what I want. Instead, I think there is a type of learning that happens best hands on with real stakes and that by keeping children away from it we are doing them a disservice.
One of the things I notice with my children, who are very young (under 1 and 3), is that they are happiest when working on something that is outside their comfort zone, but within their capability, especially when it matters to the rest of the family. My three year old has had a toy cleaning set that she hardly ever played with but now uses daily to sweep up after dinner. I don't want to draw conclusions that are too sweeping from what I see observing my kids, but I do suspect there is something there.