USA, Land of Limitations looks at the link between income and academic performance with an interesting conclusion:
“A half-century ago, the black-white test score gap was 50 percent greater than the gap between the richest 10 percent and the poorest 10 percent. Now it is the other way around, with the class gap almost twice that of the race gap.”
When Success Leads to Failure as a teacher at an international school where families often have very high expectations for their children this quote really resonated with me:
“child has sacrificed her natural curiosity and love of learning at the altar of achievement, and it’s our fault… parents, teachers, society at large—we are all implicated in this crime against learning. From her first day of school, we pointed her toward that altar and trained her to measure her progress by means of points, scores, and awards. We taught Marianna that her potential is tied to her intellect, and that her intellect is more important than her character.”
An absolute must-read.
I have been pondering the need to over-document experiences now that we have access to storage and a camera in our pocket and it seems I’m not the only one. Benedict Cumberbatch to fans: Stop filming Hamlet performance let you remember with your minds rather than your camera.
Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming
“Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.”
Teaching the Teacher 
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