On Our Virtual Route 66: On the Education Front

 

Welcome to September!!

It has been quite a week on the Education Front as we begin in our Home State On the Education Front Courtesy EdSource on Michael Horn's The Future of Education and  on Ryan Halliday & Brian Dodd on Leadership:

In today’s roundup, I have just two items for you. The first is on how what people envision when it comes to the return of school in the late summer and early fall may be changing. I joined the crew from OpenEd, a school network that serves over 12,000 students in Utah and Oregon through their district partnerships, on their podcast to talk “Unbundling Education.”

I talked about the gradual shift toward personalizing learning and why it's happening faster in places like Utah. I made the point that the Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) being passed in many states are significantly different from vouchers. We also talked about the importance of building sustainable alternative education models and why top-down reforms often fail. Bottoms-up is the way to go, as I’ve learned over the years. And we talked about why so many schools are failing at “the hidden curriculum”—things like executive function, agency, and the like. All that and more here.

 

Education Unplugged

I also joined Education Unplugged with host Vicki Greene, president and CEO of the GED Testing Service. I shared insights from my own career and then we delved into a few topics:

– Addressing Employer Needs and Overcoming Bias: We discussed the need for employers to adapt their hiring practices to include non-traditional educational credentials like the GED and explored how such credentials not only fill urgent skill gaps, but also enrich the workforce with individuals who have demonstrated perseverance and a proactive approach to personal development.

– Leveraging Technology in Education: The conversation also touched on the role of AI and technology in education. I talked about some of the ways that AI can provide personalized educational support and remove barriers such as the fear of asking questions to enable a more inclusive learning environment that caters to individual needs, particularly within non-traditional education settings.

– Empowering Through Education: We both talked about a need to shift the perception around adult education and the GED program. You can check it out here.

 

Apprenticeship 2.0

My friends at Reach University—Chancellor, co-founder (and past Future U. guest on back-to-back shows!) Mallory Dwinal Palisch and President and co-founder Joe Ross—operate one of the most interesting and important teacher preparation programs that works through an apprenticeship model. Joe also hosts the Apprenticeship 2.0 podcast. In this episode, he interviews Mallory about the journey and founding of Reach University and the apprenticeship degree.

In it, they detail the ABCs of apprenticeship:

Affordable (with zero debt)

Based fully in the Workplace (i.e., starts with a job)

Credit for Learning at Work (for 50% of the program by inverting what everyone thinks of the “Carnegie Unit”). 

And the stories and geeking out—including how the Carnegie Unit was actually helpful as they innovated and how they had to hire a law firm to appeal to the Department of Education to not let Reach give out student loans—is fascinating and well worth the listen.

As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.

California passes bill to limit student cell phone use on K-12 campuses

By Diana Lambert, EdSource

The Phone-Free School Act requires school districts and charter schools to develop a policy limiting the use of smartphones by July 1, 2026.

Read more

Communication with parents is key to addressing chronic absenteeism, panel says By Emma Gallegos, EdSource Low-cost, scalable engagement through texting and post cards can make a huge difference in getting students back in the habit of attending classes.

Read more

SF State drops investments in arms makers in deal with pro-Palestinian students By Amy DiPierro, EdSource The moves resulted in changes to the university’s $163 million investment portfolio.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:

When we say Amor Fati, when we say The Obstacle is the Way, we’re not talking about just sitting there, being provided with fuel. We’re talking about surging forward, pulling ourselves towards the oxygen—going towards the fuel, towards the next thing, never stopping, using all of it. We seek out energy and create energy in the process. We don’t wait. We don’t stop. We are not passive. We become unstoppable.

Read: You Must Go Toward The Oxygen​

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YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:

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In a recent video on the ​Daily Stoic YouTube channel, Ryan Holiday shares Stoic strategies to set yourself free from our ill-fated attachments to material goods, money, and ambition:

“We think that having money, having power, being ambitious, striving upwards is going to make us feel free, but in many cases, it chains us down because we’re dependent on somebody else’s favor, we’re dependent on what our industry allows, what our peers do. We just don’t want to lose the things that we’ve gotten really comfortable having.”

Watch the full video here: Financial Freedom Won't Set You Free (These Stoic Tips Will)

Subscribe to Daily Stoic YouTube

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PODCAST TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:

In a recent episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan Holiday speaks with author Richard Dawkins on the biggest misunderstandings of his work and our society’s compartmentalization of religion:

“Einstein used the word God as a kind of symbol of that which we don’t understand. When he said, ‘did God have a choice in creating the universe?’, he really meant, ‘is there only one way for a universe to be?’ But I think that you’ll find that many of these very intelligent people who describe themselves as religious are probably no more religious than Einstein, which means not religious at all in the kind of sense that a supernaturalist would understand the world. It’s a sort of compartmentalized part of their life where they don’t even look at what’s in the compartment.”

Listen to the full episode: Richard Dawkins’ Perspective on Faith, Philosophy, and the Layers of Human Existence​

Subscribe to Daily Stoic Podcast

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