Change Everything to What Suits You

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The more you dive into creative work, the more creative you are. It’s like building a muscle.

Keep flexing that muscle, and it will grow until you reach a plateau, causing you to search for a new challenge. Creating is no different; you’re just flexing different muscles.

Musicians know this, as they can see the direct result of hours of focused practice months later in new skills and abilities on their instrument, or perhaps even on a new instrument.

Enter Jacob Collier.

Collier, who experienced viral stardom through his YouTube channel in the early 2010s, now regularly collaborates with some of the biggest names in the music industry.

At some point, he decided to pick up the guitar and transfer his piano skills to a new instrument. When he did, something interesting happened.

In this video with Paul Davids, Collier describes learning to play on his first guitar, which had only four strings, like a mandolin. Because of his love of tight harmonies, Collier eventually spoke with Taylor Guitars to craft a 5-string guitar rather than the typical 6-string layout.

The results? Something utterly new and beautiful. But, Collier admits that he doesn’t think of himself as a guitar player because he doesn’t play like a trained guitar player.

“I couldn’t play the guitar, but I would imagine playing the guitar,” Collier notes as he explains his learning process. He admits that he doesn’t follow many of the guitar-playing rules.

Davids, the host and an accomplished guitar player himself tells Collier, “If you don’t like a rule, tweak it… change everything to what suits you.”

If we could grasp that statement and put it into practice with our students, I think we’d see some amazing things come out of our schools. How often do we ask our students (and ourselves) to do things that don’t fit naturally with how we think, act, or create? Why do we continually try to force everything in education to fit into a box?

Sometimes, we allow “tradition” to dictate our work far too much. Remember, tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.

On Not Knowing the Way But Doing It Anyway

Collier talks about hanging with Joni Mitchell–yes, that Joni Mitchell–and watching her play guitar. She plays chords she doesn’t know, but her fingers and ears let her find the right ones to play, making something new.

This idea of not really knowing what you’re doing as you create isn’t new and certainly isn’t exclusive to educators trying to change their teaching practice for a different generation of learners.

Paul McCartney, one of the most well-known songwriters in the history of songwriters, said in a 2016 interview:

“There is no sort of point you just think, ‘Okay, now I can do it, I’ll just sit down and do it.’ It’s a little more fluid than that. You talk to people who make records or albums and you always go into the studio thinking, ‘Oh, well I know this! I’ve got a lot of stuff down, you know, I write.’ And then you realize that you’re doing it all over again you’re starting from square one again. You’ve never got it down. It’s this fluid thing, music. I kind of like that. I wouldn’t like to be blasé or think, ‘Oh you know I know how to do this.’ In fact I teach a class at a the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys — I do a little songwriting class with the students — and nearly always the first thing I go in and say [is], ‘I don’t know how to do this. You would think I do, but it’s not one of these things you ever know how to do. You know I can say to you: Select the key. We will now select a rhythm. Now make a melody. Now think of some great words,’ That’s not really the answer.”

Paul McCartney on songwriting

So, fearless educators, if someone like McCartney doesn’t have it figured out yet and still doubts his abilities to write songs, I think we’re doing alright as we face the productive struggle of creating new ways to do things in our schools.

Final Thoughts

I’ve often said that educators must be some of the most creative people on the planet. Every day, we face different situations, needs, and demands as we do our best to prepare students for a future we don’t know.

Maybe we should worry less about getting it all right and feel great about diving into new adventures and figuring it out as we go.


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

English learners stopped coming to class during the pandemic. One group is tackling the problem by helping their parents

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“We realized before trying to address why your child isn’t going to school, we needed to ask, ‘What’s worrying you right now?’ That question really opened up all the reasons why going to school was not the first priority for many families: housing insecurity, food insecurity, job loss,”

The Charlotte-based afterschool program, ourBRIDGE for Kids, has been helping families of immigrant and refugee children address issues that prevented them from logging into class online or showing up to school buildings during the pandemic.

The nonprofit, which runs an afterschool program for around 230 children, has been connecting families with resources, delivering groceries to students’ homes, and acting as a call center when families needed help navigating the online learning system.

OurBRIDGE has been successful because it hires staff and volunteers who are immigrants themselves and speak the same languages as the families they serve. The district’s English learner population has grown significantly in the past year, from 27,405 students to 30,151.


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Chill Music for Springtime Mornings

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As we depart from the nonsense that is Winter and dive headlong into pollen-filled, sinus-breaking, gloriously sunny early days of Spring, you too may get the urge to sit outside on your back deck on a Saturday morning and just chill.

Back deck sitting is one of my favorite pastimes and often when I do some of my best reading and thinking.

Sitting and chilling in my world means there will be music in the background, preferably something with a chill vibe and mostly instrumental.

I’ve been jamming on Hermanos Gutiérrez for a bit now and just loving these brothers more and more each time I listen.

Here’s their NPR Tiny Desk concert from early 2013 to give you a good intro to their music.

After reading a comment on that particular video, I found another band with similar vibes called Khruangbin.

This trio from Houston, Texas, is heavily inspired by 1960s and ’70s funk and soul from, of all places, Thailand. That musical passion has taken them on a journey that, these days, incorporates music from Spain, Ethiopia, and the Middle East.

Yes, they exude cool.

Add these two groups to your early weekend morning chill vibe. You won’t regret it.


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Creativity is Humanity

"But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other." (Paulo Freire, Donaldo Macedo (Introduction), Myra Bergman Ramos (Translator), Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

By our nature, humans were designed to create. It is the high cognitive portion of our mind, that 1% that stirs imagination and inquiry, that distinguishes us from our biological cousins on this planet.

When we don’t participate in the creative process, or, as happens so often in our schools, when we are prevented from participating in the creative process to conform to a preconceived notion of what we should do and how we should do it, we lose our humanity and become mere machines.

Do not waste the creative process. Do not float through your days and add nothing to the world around you.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

“But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Presenting the Presentations…

woman in black suit
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Greetings Starfighters,

Normally in this space, you’d find 10 things I found this week that I think are awesome.

This week, I’m at the KySTE Conference in Louisville, KY, leaving me with a shortened list of things to share. Next week, I’ll be back with a full set of 10.

If you’re interested, I’m giving two presentations at KySTE, one on some ideas for integrating the science of learning and development in a virtual academy and another on how we started a Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) in our virtual academy this year (the themes in this one are specific to KY, but I’m sure there’s a version you can implement where you are).

You can find the slides and resources for both those sessions right here.

Yesterday, during my session, I looked at my watch and remembered that four years prior, I was at the same conference in a meeting to figure out how we would get learning materials to kids since we were closing in-person schooling due to COVID-19.

Of course, that was only supposed to be for two weeks…

In other news:

  1. Adobe is getting into the digital badging game. This seems like a late move, with so many edtech providers offering badges and “ambassador” programs for years now. As someone who once chased these credentials, I always worry that the mindset is more about becoming an unpaid salesman for a company rather than focusing on great outcomes for kids. Still, there is value in earning these badges.
  2. From the “We Can’t Avoid It, So We’ll Embrace It” Department – Pearson is expanding AI within its Pearson+ e-textbooks in the coming school year.
  3. If you work in education (or really any industry) and share your thoughts and work online as I do, Christy Tucker has some great advice on setting realistic boundaries for sharing freely (face it, folks, we gotta get paid somehow).
  4. In other news involving money, Accenture is buying Udacity to build a learning platform for AI.
  5. Educators are increasingly adopting the concept of play theory, which argues that play and learning are fundamentally intertwined and that children benefit from a healthy balance of both.

OK, that’s 5 awesome things to share. Have a great weekend, gang. Mine will be spent watching T-Swift on repeat with my pre-teen daughter. I’d appreciate your thoughts and prayers 😉


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Keep Your Childhood Sense of Wonder

“Masters and those who display a high level of creative energy are simply people who manage to retain a sizeable portion of their childhood spirit despite the pressures and demands of adulthood.”

Robert Greene, Mastery
"Masters and those who display a high level of creative energy are simply people who manage to retain a sizeable portion of their childhood spirit despite the pressures and demands of adulthood." (Robert Greene, Mastery)

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Dune-inspired Electronica is Brilliant

I haven’t made it to see Dune Part 2 yet, but I discovered this amazing album that came out around the same time as Dune Part 1.

It’s giving tons of Kraftwerk vibes, which is awesome. I also think this should have been the soundtrack for the 1984 version of Dune; it certainly fits the aesthetic.

Does A Machine Like Yourself Ever Experience Fear?

super saiyan

It’s rainy here in the Bluegrass State as another Friday rolls around. Spring Break is right around the corner for many of us, but not before we complete the last barrage of testing leading up to our end-of-year assessments—and my, aren’t those fun?

Still, there are so many things happening and more cool stuff than ever to share, so here are 10 Things worth sharing with you this week.

10 Things Worth Sharing


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Is journalism disappearing?

close up view of an old typewriter
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I know folks have strong feelings about this, especially journalism profs. Trust me — there’s no one who loves journalism as much as me, or someone who is constantly screaming about the blurring lines between *content* and *journalism.* But — I’m coming from a place of concern.

Tulika Bose, Scientific American

Leaders from several US journalism schools discuss the news industry’s declining state and how they prepare students to enter a turbulent business. They acknowledge the harsh economic realities facing the industry, which has seen layoffs and the closure of several news outlets.

However, they stress the importance of journalism and the need to teach students the skills needed to report on crucial events and provide accurate information to the public. These educators are also exploring ways to make journalism education more affordable and equip students with the knowledge to understand the business side of news.


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Essential Resources to Guide Your AI Journey

elderly man thinking while looking at a chessboard
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Jisc, a technology organization in the UK, has compiled a selection of resources to support different stages of AI maturity, including strategic resources, supporting students and learners, supporting staff, maintaining academic integrity, safe responsible use, and AI tools. The resources include blogs, reports, videos, podcasts, and training courses covering generative AI, accessibility, assessment, bias, ethics, and AI tools. Jisc is also developing new resources to support the move to the operational stage, such as pre-procurement selection criteria for generative AI tools and a generative AI skills training program for staff.


Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!