I just finished A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines – Janna Levin‘s novel that weaves threads from the lives of Kurt Godel and Alan Turing. I was already familiar with Turing and his code-breaking exploits that enabled the allied victory in the battle of the Atlantic from Robert Harris’s thriller Enigma and various historical accounts including the fascinating Most Secret…
Did you catch this NYTimes article on open-source science and seeking collaborative solutions to new challenges? “If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone”. The process, according to John Seely Brown, a theorist of information technology and former director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, reflects “a huge shift in popular culture, from consuming to participating” enabled by the interactivity…
Solar panels, wind turbines, solid waste fuel, electronic generators and all manner of imaginative and greener ways to power cars, boats, tanks, military transporters, barges and trucks The task for the first and second grade was to imagine a vehicle powered by an alternate fuel source. And then build the model. With the rise in gas prices this spring it…
Solar panels, wind turbines, solid waste fuel, electronic generators and all manner of imaginative and greener ways to power cars, boats, tanks, military transporters, barges and trucks The task for the first and second grade was to imagine a vehicle powered by an alternate fuel source. And then build the model. With the rise in gas prices this spring it…
And they smell good and feel good too! In a fascinating article in the current New York Review of Books the historian Robert Darnton provides some good historical context to the hand-wringing over the instability of texts and the unreliability of information in the age of information overload. Darnton argues that texts have always been unstable and that news and…
Empathy – the ability to understand and identify with another’s situation, feelings, motives. Emotional Intelligence – the ability to understand your own emotions and those of people around you. To be emotionally intelligent means having a self-awareness that enables the recognition of feelings and helps you manage emotions. At a personal level, it involves motivation and being able to focus…
Some attributes of creativity: Challenge assumptions Be receptive to new ideas Recognize similarities or differences Make unlikely connections Take risks Build on ideas to make better ideas Look at things in new ways Take advantage of the unexpected from The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher
Still Life with Fruit Basket – Paul Cezanne Think globally with awareness and understanding of complexity and multiple perspectives Predators have eyes in the front so they can see their prey. Prey have eyes on each side so they can watch out for predators. Flatfish, like the flounder, have eyes on one side so they can blend into the sea…
Out with the old hoops, in with the new floor. The gym is looking good. Checking the plans in the parking lot, checking the rock shelf in front of Gilkeson Moving the rock in the playground and the summer camp has lunch on the porch of Kenyon House.
I came to work after a drilling at the dentist to the joyous sound of jackhammers at work. The posts are in, the fence erected and the Gilkeson enhancement project is underway. The fence surrounds the front of the building where the new science labs will be. The backhoe is already at work. The playground area is also fenced off…
Children are natural learners. It’s what they do. And the learning is joyful and the thirst for knowledge, understanding and mastery of skills insatiable. The primary task of school is to keep that connection with joyful learning vibrant and intact. The second task is to expand the horizons of learners – to provide opportunity, to create new contexts and scaffold…
The pre-k children know a lot about bees and their wall display shows it. I found this on their classroom wall and it reminded me of a wonderful interview Listen to the Bees in About Town – the local community paper for northern Dutchess that I picked up at the grocery store. My mother kept bees and I have always…
Do you suffer from email apnea? Are your hunter-gatherer instincts affecting your attention span and productivity? Help – or at least serious recognition of the problem – may be at hand. See today’s NYTimes Lost in E-M ail,Tech Firms Face Self-Made Beast. Photo: Jeremy Bishop
The end of the school year and an express train filled with events, final exams, feasts, pageants, displays, presentations, performances, ceremonies, farewells and of course graduation commencement. Read more about graduation from The Poughkeepsie Journal I took this unofficial picture of the graduating class at the outdoor adventure trip last September.
Graduation was on Wednesday and all the students were gone by the end of the day. And then the rains came and the leaks in Gilkeson began. An investigation of the roof indicated raccoon damage – teeth and claw marks. All fixed now. These pictures are of a raccoon on the Kenyon House roof this spring. Steve Mallet to the…