This post is the text of a lecture I gave in 2013 at the annual meeting of the John Dewey Society. It was published the following year in the Society's journal, Education and Culture. Here's a link to the published version. The story I tell here is not a philosophical … Continue reading College: What Is It Good For?
This post is an essay by Justin Sider, which recently appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's a link to the original. The essay is a diatribe against the prolific work of the pedagogy gurus of contemporary academe — the self-styled learning experts whose hectoring books and advice columns have become a familiar feature … Continue reading Justin Sider — The Problem with Pedagogy Gurus
In this post, I explore the issue of the different ways in which people give reasons to each other. It draws on a lovely little book by sociologist Charles Tilly: Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons...and Why. One of the things that makes his account valuable is how it gives scholars a way of … Continue reading Tilly: Why? Different Ways that People Give Reasons — and Lessons for Scholars
This post is an essay by Frank Fukuyama that was published recently in Persuasion. Here's a link to the original. And here's a link to a PDF of the original. Here he explores an argument I strongly support, namely that liberals have forgotten that we used to deploy the powers of government to build things. More … Continue reading Francis Fukuyama — Our Hamiltonian Moment
This post is a piece of mine that was published three years ago in Inside Higher Ed. Here’s a link to the original. It's also included in my newish book, Being a Scholar. It’s about an inherent tension in the act of writing between arrogance and humility. AN EXERCISE IN ARROGANCE AND HUMILITY TO BE A … Continue reading Writing as an Exercise in Arrogance and Humility
This post is an essay by Peter Wei published in his Substack Ecumene. Here's a link to the original. In this piece he explores an issue I've talked about here from time to time, one of the core problems that the current academic meritocracy poses for the meritocrats themselves. It's not just the losers in the … Continue reading Peter Wei — The Professional-Managerial Class Has No Future
This post draws on a discussion I participated in that was published in Comparative Education Review in 2009. It brought together a variety of scholars to comment on a new film about schooling produced by Bob Compton called 2 Million Minutes. The film draws its title from the number of minutes that students around the … Continue reading Schools Should Focus on Producing More Hustlers than Scholars
This post is an essay by Ilana Horwitz recently published in Times Higher Education. Here's a link to the original. It draws on her new book, The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond. It explores an argument that I came to develop over the years of working with doctoral students -- … Continue reading Ilana Horwitz — PhD Students Should Think Like Entrepreneurs
This post is an op-ed written by Deborah Malizia and me that was published on December, 2022 in the Mercury News. Here's a link to the original. It's about how the pressure for rigor and high academic achievement in American schools has been damaging the mental health of students. Another example of schooling's role in … Continue reading Schools Are at the Root of the Youth Mental Health Crisis
This post is a speech that Stanford's former provost, John Etchemendy, recently gave to the university's board of trustees. Right now, the threats to universities are coming fast and furious from the outside, with the new administration canceling research grants, threatening to cut indirect cost reimbursement, and to tax endowment income. But in this speech … Continue reading John Etchemendy — The Threat from Within
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 