As many readers know, I am applying to be a student speaker at the TEDX Teachers College event in April.  The big idea that I am hoping to share is why there needs to be a shift in how educational leaders (school and district administrators) are trained in university programs – from a focus [...]

I often talk about my time as a karate instructor as not only my first experience as a teacher, but also my first experience as a leader.  From the time I was 16 until I graduated college, I taught hundreds of children and adults American Karate, trained assistant instructors and eventually promoted several of my [...]

Here is my introduction video for the TED X TC event. The goal was to give a brief idea of who I am and what I’m all about – which basically boils down to martial arts, neuroscience, and education.  The video had to be less than 5 minutes, so I brought it home in a [...]

Since my first year teaching, I’ve had an idea.  It’s not a crazy idea.  It is not a overly-complicated or convoluted idea.  But looking at the state of things in public education, it is apparently not an obvious idea, or in the very least, not an idea that is widely championed. So I want to [...]

Before the fall semester at Teachers College wound to a close, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Dr. Bruce Wexler, professor of Psychiatry at Yale, and founder of C8Sciences.  Admittedly, I walked into the hall full of coffee and skepticism; I can still cringe remembering my first principal pitching some ridiculous PD [...]

A while back I ran across a nifty website that I think more teachers should be familiar with – The Scale of the Universe 2. I sent a link to a couple science teacher friends of mine, and I got a similar response from both; “it’s really cool, but I can’t figure out exactly where [...]

Books make the best gifts.  A couple years ago my oldest sister gave me a copy of a great read A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska: The Story of Hannah Breece, and I highly recommend it to any educators who would like to refresh their perspective on education during the upcoming winter break. Hannah Breece was [...]

I recently wrote about how humans are primarily visual learners – so what better way to activate those visual cortices than through comic books?  I spent a significant portion of my childhood reading comics, and I credit them for enhancing my vocabulary and giving me an understanding of complex social issues like civil equality. For [...]

Yesterday, I attended a seminar at TC discussing current research and pedagogical practice of teacher education in Finland.  In other words, the Finns who teach other Finns how to teach came to discuss their craft.  I heard from doctors Auli Toom, Leena Krokfors, and Jukka Husu on various research efforts within Finnish teacher-education, followed by [...]

The human brain is the most complicated material object in the known universe – Gerald Edelman, (M.D., PhD, Nobel Lauriat) from his book Wider than the sky. Edelman was not hyperbolizing the physical nature of the brain with its approximately 180 billion neurons and supporting glial cells…not to mention the 100 trillion or so synapses facilitating [...]