At about 6:40pm EST, Alex Jones entered the TYT stage. Continue reading “Timeline: How Alex Jones almost took over The Young Turks at the RNC” →

Last year I participated in a program called Leadership New York that is run by an organization called Coro. This was a 9-month part-time program for 50 mid-career professionals who worked in non-profit, for-profit, and government.

The program was one part leadership skill development, one part networking, and one part deep dive into New York City’s biggest issues in topics like education, health care, and public safety. Continue reading “My Life as a Case Study” →

This November I will be running the New York City Marathon, my third race at this distance but first in this location. While the race itself will be great (I live right on the course and have been able to cheer on my friends who have done it the last few years), the real value of the experience will come from the training.

Training for the marathon will make a better employee. Here are five reasons why: Continue reading “Why Training for a Marathon will make me a better Employee” →

A big reason why I decided to get into education was because I felt like there was a massive waste of potential happening in schools that were under-educating poor children. Society was wasting genius by not investing in schools.

Wasted potential infuriates me. I was taught that this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

With that said, I’d like to induct a member into my personal Hall of Fame. My Hall of Fame may not be full of celebrities, but the world deserves to know their names.

Today, I am proud to recognize the funniest person I’ve ever met: Jared “The Mayor of Bushwick” Adams.

Continue reading “Induction into my Personal Hall of Fame: The Funniest Man I know, Jared Adams” →

I am 29 years old. I’m too old to say that I’m in my 20s with a straight face and too young to be inducted into the 30s club.

I am a manager. I’m too senior to have all of my tasks be menial but too junior to have my decisions shape the whole organization.

I’ve been married for two years. We haven’t been married long enough to give anyone advice about how to have a great marriage but we’ve been married too long to be considered newlyweds.

I live in a one bedroom apartment in a nice brownstone. It’s much nicer than the bachelor pad I used to live in but not as nice as some of the houses I’ve seen upstate.

I’m in an in-between phase in my life. I drink Dom Perigean out of plastic cups.

The only thing more popular than Pokemon Go is people making snide comments about Pokemon Go.

I’ve been a fan of niche interests like mixed martial arts and chess for a long time, so I’m used to people saying “I don’t get it.”

But as I walk down the street hearing people criticize Pokemon Go, it reminds me of the joy people have in telling you how shitty they are at math. How they don’t know anything about technology. Their ignorance of the game is a signal of their refined predilections.

If you criticize Pokemon Go in my presence without presenting a substantive argument, I’m going to judge you. I may not say it aloud, but in my head I’m looking at you like Stanley from The Office. 

There are plenty of criticisms to make of the game and the people who play it. It says something about our society that you can mobilize hundreds of people to catch a Vaporion in Central Park but police brutality results in blank stares and empty streets.

Given that, if you say any phrase that celebrates your ignorance of Pokemon Go, expect my judgement. After all, I didn’t say anything when I got all those damned FarmVille invitations on Facebook. I ignored them and went about my business.

 

I’ve been listening to spoken word programming since I was a kid. Some of my best memories of me going to middle school were listening to Howard Stern on the radio. Say what you will about the King of all Media, but the man knows how to interview.

As I’ve grown into an adult, my palette has expanded beyond morning radio shows to the wide world of podcasts. I plan on writing a more comprehensive blog post about my favorite podcasts later, but for now I want to focus on three podcast episodes that have changed the way I think about a topic near to my heart: education.  Continue reading “Three Podcasts that Changed the way I think about Education” →

This is the second of a 12-part series based off of Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly’s 1997 article “New Rules for the New Economy” on my predictions for what education will look like in the next 100 years. My first prediction was The Integration of Personal and Professional Education Tools. 

The point of my predictions isn’t to be “right,” per se, in the way a weather report strives to be accurate. Instead, I strive to be thought-provoking in the way a concept car at an auto show demonstrates what manufacturers imagine the future of automobiles might look like, even if they don’t plan on releasing that specific concept car.

My next prediction is Freemium Schooling using the Follow the Free framework. The idea is to look at where people are voluntarily choosing to spend their discretionary resources (time or money) and use that as a predictor of where people will be willing to spend those same resources in the future.  Continue reading “Freemium Schooling: Predictions for Education’s Next 100 Years [2 of 12]” →

One of my favorite mixed martial artists is Conor McGregor. Few can match his mix of braggadocio, physical talent, and success (ignore the Nate Diaz loss).

One of his most frequently used quotes is:

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

In fact, he likes it so much that he got it tattooed on his forearm.

This saying resonates a lot with me because, as this sign I saw on Fair Street in Cold Spring reminds me, slow progress is powerful.

As I work on improving myself and finding my path, there is a temptation to rush. I appreciate urgency, but they don’t call me Slowmar for ‘nothin.

I’m the only one that is going to live my life so I’m going to do it at my pace.

I’ve spent most of my adult life thinking about what the future of education in the United States can look like, especially for high-need communities. In that time, I’ve seen the rise of online education, updates in state standards, and a growing rift between so-called reformers and so-called anti-reformers. I want to look beyond the what we currently think is possible and imagine what education can look like in the next century.

The framework I’m using to explore this new reality is based off of Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly’s 1997 article “New Rules for the New Economy.” There are twelve techniques for prognosticating the future that he outlines. Prediction is an inherently messy business, but the exercise is worthwhile to think beyond the constraints of our current conversations. The point of my predictions isn’t to be “right,” per se, in the way a weather report strives to be accurate. Instead, I strive to be thought-provoking in the way a concept car at an auto show demonstrates what manufacturers imagine the future of automobiles might look like, even if they don’t plan on releasing that specific concept car.

I plan on using Kelly’s 12 frameworks to imagine these new realities. The first is extrapolation, where he suggests you take the current iteration of things and extrapolate outward.

Continue reading “Beyond the Possible: Predictions for Education’s Next 100 Years [1 of 12]” →