Supplement the learning environment with resources

Originally posted in our June 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. As we enter the Summer months, many of us reflect on the year so far and take time to be with family and friends. This period can be an opportunity for growth, recovery, and rejuvenation. With this in mind, we wanted to focus on a few tools that can improve our well-being; whether that is hearing a time of rest or during our day-to-day lives. We’ll…

Originally posted in our May 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. Keeping the theme set by John Kay’s talk on obliquity, we turn to an article from the BBC about the beginner’s mindset. The work of Tom Vanderbilt is outlined in the article, showing ways that adults can re-commit to learning and the importance of learning many things. Learning from our mistakes, varying our practice, and sharing our new knowledge with others are ways to improve…

Originally posted in our May 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. Thinking about obliquity in more practical terms, we could understand the concept of achieving a complex and dynamic goal by finding the smaller, more achievable goals that make up the whole. When we think about entrepreneurial ventures, we talk about minimally viable products (MVP), which are, in a way, a simplification of a more complex mission. In a guest blog for Steve Blank, investor Shawn…

Originally posted in our May 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. In his TEDx talk from 2012, economist John Kay unpacks the concept of obliquity. That is, “our complex goals are often best achieved indirectly.” Kay provides a variety of examples, from geography and rocket science to architecture and philosophy, that show how sometimes the most effective route towards a goal is one that appears indirect. As he says, “defining what our objectives are is actually…

As we discussed with the term languishing, when we focus on a particular profession, teaching, we see a fraught and reductive phrase bandied around: burnout. Teacher burnout is a topic which many think pieces, studies, and keynotes have tried to address. ‘Teachers need to learn to relax,’ they might say, with some relaxation techniques included. But how are we ignoring what’s really going on with teachers that “describe themselves as frustrated, exhausted, and disappointed by their…