1/21/18 Last week I wrote about the misalignment between housing needs and housing realities in Boston. I suggested that the challenge of housing development in Boston in the future invites the sort of creativity and innovative problem-solving that we would like to see our students pursue. As a case study, one could see how creativity,... Continue Reading →

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?

A crewed mission to Mars will demand expertise from a wide range of disciplines, including physics, engineering, psychology and geology. Less obvious, it will also require us to scrutinise any antecedents that could help us to prepare for one of the most difficult undertakings in history. Perhaps nothing better prefigures this most daunting and ambitious... Continue Reading →

1/7/18 Dear Colleagues, I trust that you have enjoyed the unexpected break from routine afforded by bombogenesis (now bomboexodus, both by departure of said storm and according to the cycle of Torah reading)! As I write this, I’m looking out at the pawprints of various creatures in the snow just outside my window…. At Gann,... Continue Reading →

“We're always talking about creativity, but what do we mean? Can we find creativity, can we measure it, can we encourage it? Kurt talks with Gary Marcus, a psychology professor about what science tells us about creativity. A researcher puts jazz musicians into an fMRI machine and has them improvise; an intrepid reporter gets her... Continue Reading →

We are in need of leadership. Anyone involved in educating children knows that our national political discourse has pressed on young people in ways not seen in a generation or more. Basic rules of civility, decency, and mutual respect have been breached, and communication across social differences has been strained to the breaking point. The message... Continue Reading →

Scientists must design their courses to keep up with rapidly expanding empirical knowledge, and they do not have the leisure of devoting hours of class-time to questions that they probably are not trained to address. The unintended consequence is that students often come away from their classes without being aware that philosophical questions are relevant... Continue Reading →