Arising as regular as the whine of summer mosquitos are now annualized calls by school administrators and educators warning parents of the “summer slide“. The “summer slide” isn’t a fixture in the local playground but an imaginary bogey man that, allegedly, causes students to forget what they learned the previous spring in school. Believers in […]
‘Prosperous life’ research highlights folly of conventional options
Thanks to info pouring in from the frontiers of neuroscience, psychology and sociology, I’m increasingly aware of the opportunities we have – as parents, educators and advisors – to positively influence the directions of learning and wellness, and particularly among children and youth. To this end, new knowledge we have makes clearer the choices we […]
Look Beyond Education ‘Miracles’ and You’ll See Natural Learning Reflected. SelfDesign, too.
A common subject in this year’s back-to-school stories, as it has been for the past few years, is the ‘Finnish Miracle’. That is, the Finnish education system, made over by government in the 1970s and now considered a startling success, worldwide. To most reviewers, ‘success’ is attributed to the Finnish education system because of the […]
RE – “Urban Legend” that Self-Directed Learning is Effective
Yikes, I just caught up to a paper published last year in Educational Psychologist, “Do Learners Really Know Best? Urban Legends in Education” (link here). In this paper the authors focus on three themes they mark out as “urban legends”: i, that there exists a new generation of “digital natives”, ii, that learners have specific […]
SURPASS 2014 for teens, 13-17 years – check it out!
Registration for ‘SURPASS 2014’ is open for teens, 13-17 years. This will be our 6th SURPASS event, to be held again at Camp Byng, July 13th – 20th, on the Sunshine Coast of BC, nearby to the town of Gibsons (which also happens to be where I live). SURPASS is a week-long program in which […]
SURPASSING Expectations
The end of July saw the wrap of another very successful Surpass workshop-camp for 26 teens, out of Camp Byng on BC’s Sunshine Coast. Surpass is a week-long experience of multiple activities designed to promote community and personal development. The sub-context to Surpass? Feeling good emotionally and physically; good enough to try out some new things […]
Michael’s book, Learn Your Way! SelfDesigning the Life You Really Want, Starting Now is an ERAC-approved middle and high school textbook for career planning and health education courses (British Columbia), and it has received many endorsements. Contact Michael directly to obtain a pdf copy of the book.