Author: Mike G

Hi. I work in K-12 education....schoolteacher training. Lots of published research says that older teachers don't improve much. Well, I'm "older." Just turned 50. In 2020, I'm trying something new (improving at golf) to learn about adult performance change. By experiencing frustration, and experiencing the coaching techniques, practice techniques, and feedback tools in the golf sector, maybe I can come up with new ideas for K-12 teacher improvement, particularly older ones more set in their ways.

Harvard, Princeton Profs Fear Class Discussions About China

On By Mike G

From Lucy Craymer at WSJ:

The effect of the new national-security law that China imposed on Hong Kong is extending far beyond the territory to American college campuses.

From Princeton:

“We cannot self-censor,” said Rory Truex, an assistant professor who teaches Chinese politics at Princeton. “If we, as a Chinese teaching community, out of fear stop teaching things like Tiananmen or Xinjiang or whatever sensitive topic the Chinese government doesn’t want us talking about, if we cave, then we’ve lost.”

His course will now come with a warning that some of the material might be sensitive and of concern to China’s government, and he said he was introducing blind grading. Students will hand in work bearing a code rather than their name, to prevent any student from being linked to particular views or arguments.

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I’m More Worried About the Fraying US-China Relationship than Corona Virus

On By Mike G

I’m just an educator who likes the puzzle of how to teach better.

I became interested in Chinese schools in 2018, invited to see a few schools there. Of course I was aware of diplomatic tensions between the USA and China. Harvard’s grand scholar of international relations, Graham Allison, had published his book just a year prior, the Thucydides Trap:
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