John Palfrey In each of the last two academic years, I’ve made short lists of books I’ve liked, related mostly (but not exclusively) to secondary education and the digital world, to share with the faculty of Phillips Academy. We buy a stack of each of the books, placed on the shelf outside my office, and share them … Read more
I thought I would share on this blog a copy of what I said, more or less, to the assembled 1,129 students and to hundreds of faculty of Phillips Academy this morning to open our school year. The All School Meeting, held in Cochran Chapel, started with a procession of 58 flags representing the countries … Read more
I had the chance to compare the development of the Berkman Center at Harvard to the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT.
Sal Khan and his traveling team of six teachers and developers from Khan Academy are on campus at Phillips Academy this morning. We are delighted to welcome them to a special faculty meeting. We are pleased to welcome friends from the Andover public schools ( Superintendent Marinel McGrath and AHS Principal Christopher Lord), the Lawrence … Read more
My favorite tweet in a long time, courtesy of @electriclit: It’s going to be a good day. The Digital Public Library of America opens at noon: j.mp/15hTf0w // @dpla Today is launch day for the DPLA. Hooray! So many people have worked so very hard in the past two years to get the plan down, … Read more
Super late to the party: Dan Cohen & the DPLA. An enthusiastic take by Sarah Barbrow on Dan Cohen’s appointment as the founding executive director of the Digital Public Library of America, which I share.
Do we still need libraries? Absolutely. And this post makes the case for why — and why we need them more than ever in an age of Google.
Tonight at the Phillips Academy faculty meeting, we are talking with Dr. Gerard Gioia of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. The purpose of this discussion is to ensure that we are adopting best practices to protect our students from traumatic brain injury (TBI), or concussions, and that we have sound policies and … Read more
Book page for Claude Steele, Whistling Vivaldi
Tonight in the faculty meeting at Phillips Academy, we will discuss Claude Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi. It’s an exceptionally good book on many levels. The social science is deep and revealing; the personal narratives are compelling; and the ideas for concrete action at schools are constructive.
It seems fitting to be having this conversation tonight, on the 50th anniversary of James Meredith’s registration at Ole Miss. Yesterday’s lead story in the New York Times (by Adam Liptak) also highlighted the important new challenge to affirmative action that the United States Supreme Court will hear this term. (From the story: “On Oct. 10, the court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 11-345, a major challenge to affirmative action in higher education.”) It’s unfortunate that we are still struggling at the level of admissions of diverse communities; the discussion should be much further along than it is today.
The conversation about what schools should do once we have highly diverse communities is at the top of our access agenda. It’s not enough to admit students from a broad range of backgrounds; it’s essential that we are intentional and effective about how we enable all students to succeed and enjoy their time at schools, including Andover.
This morning, Prof. Mizuko (Mimi) Ito is at Phillips Academy, Andover, to lead us, as a faculty, in a community conversation to start off the year. Mimi is setting forth the core data and arguments behind Connected Learning, which is our professional development theme at Andover for the year. She has us all on an … Read more