My current playlist is this diorama of Lulu the Piggy channeling Tupac Shakur in a toy vending machine in the basement of New World Mall in Flushing Chinatown.
Blog Posts
A concerned nutritional epidemiologist in Tokyo realizes that if you are what you eat, that means… It’s a similar situation in Seoul, albeit with less oil and more confidence.
I realize that because I have several chairs, the phrase “my chair” is ambiguous. To reduce confusion, I will refer to the head of my academic department as “my office chair” going forward.
The Wikipedia article on antipopes can be pretty confusing! If you’d like to be even more confused, it can help with that!
May 23, 2024 The Siren Song of “Evidence-Based” Instruction By Alfie Kohn I’m geeky enough to get a little excited each time a psychology or education journal lands in my mailbox.1 Indeed, I’ve spent a fair portion of my life sorting through, critically analyzing, and writing about social science research. Even my books that are intended for general readers contain, ... Read More
As the Ukrainian war enters its third year, there has been renewed, if rather limp, talk of a ceasefire followed by negotiations. The premise is that since neither side can ‘win’, it makes sense to start making peace. Few now remember that the war almost ended before it got going. On 24 February 2022, Russia … Continue reading The Lost Peace (Short Version)
March 4, 2024 Cognitive Load Theory An Unpersuasive Attempt to Justify Direct Instruction By Alfie Kohn [For a half-hour interview and discussion with Kohn about this essay, see this video.] A remarkable body of research over many years has demonstrated that the sort of teaching in which students are provided with answers or shown the correct way to do something ... Read More
October 25, 2023 Aggressive Nostalgia The Dark Side of Pining for the Good Old Days By Alfie Kohn “Time was when parents had their own authority about the rearing of children….There was no back talk and no nonsense….Today we have the child- centered home. In it there is little peace and quiet, and certainly not much respect for, or fear ... Read More
April 29, 2022 Last Time, the Religious Right Told Us Not Only What We Can Teach but How to Teach It By Alfie Kohn Christian conservatives are banning books and censoring school curricula — and not for the first time. Materials dealing with sexuality and sexual orientation have always been popular targets for them; indeed, researchers have found that literally ... Read More
May 16, 2022 When the Myth of Progress Unravels By Alfie Kohn The arc of history is long, but it bends toward catastrophic annihilation. — Barbara Ehrenreich The fact that five religious Supreme Court justices have eliminated women’s right to terminate a pregnancy — a protection representing “a half-century of progress toward a more equal society” — has ... Read More