Category Archives: Uncategorized

Derek Sivers says that we should let pedestrians define the walkways.  Here’s his anecdote: A new college campus was built, but one thing was still debated: where in the grass should we put the paved walkways? Some people thought the walkways should go around the grass, to leave it green. Some thought the walkways shouldContinue reading “Why do we keep paving the cowpaths?”

This week, a student asked me if she could take some action to show support for a climate cause that is important to her. It involved wearing different clothes for the day and so she was asking for my permission to promote it school-wide at very short notice. If I said yes I might beContinue reading “Beware of butterflies”

6 March 2021 For home-learning last week, my little daughter was asked to research historical events about the 1st March.  It was an interesting activity that stimulated a lot of conversation at home (did you know that Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity on 1st March 1869?) and I was so pleased to see the value andContinue reading “Zero Tolerance?”

Maybe I am just over-thinking things at the moment.  Today I saw a boy sitting on his own with his hands holding his head.  He’s fed up. Stressed.  Lonely.  I don’t really know, of course, but that’s what is going through my mind.  So many people are suffering from the cumulative impact of COVID, andContinue reading “The aggregation of marginal strains”

Perseverance, NASA’s Mars Rover, successfully landed on the Red Planet this week to search for signs of ancient microbial life, and to advance the quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. Wow. I know this because my children asked to stay up well past their bedtime to watch the landing happening live on YouTube.Continue reading “Whatever happened to Goldilocks?”

Good comedy makes me happy. In one of my favourite comedy sketches, Eddie Izzard takes on the role of the Grim Reaper, offering a series of unwitting participants the choice of “cake or death”. It’s not too difficult to make a decision here…just as long as there is enough cake to go around! I Zoomed-inContinue reading “Cake or Death?”

In the Wizard of Oz, the heroine, Dorothy, finds herself on a quest with three companions; a scarecrow in need of a brain, a tin man with no heart, and a lion without courage. In our uncertain times, as schools seek to navigate the complexity of the immediate future and think about how they needContinue reading “Education reform has a ‘Wizard of Oz’ problem”

This week, I was thinking about Aesop’s Fable, “ The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass “ while I was reflecting on my parenting skills at the end of another 168 hours of lockdown… If you are not familiar with the story, a miller and his son take their ass to the market to sellContinue reading “When you try to please everyone, you can end up pleasing no one”

I can’t think of a more apt name for a blog site with my name next to it. Serendipity is something that happens to us all at one point or another – but it also describes an important piece of my educational philosophy. Life is a continuous journey of self-discovery, and along the way thingsContinue reading “Serendipity”