The biggest sin a book can commit is to be boring. A wrong book that makes you think is still worth the journey. With this in mind, I read French philosopher Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern during a recent vacation (you know, for some light summer reading). I found the book fascinating, even […]

It’s common to talk about learning as an investment. Economists talk about human capital, assuming that skills and knowledge, like machines or factories, are primarily things we can use to earn money. Of all the reasons to learn, solely making money is hardly the best. I spend most of my learning time on things I […]

I’ve argued before that we mostly learn by doing. Yet, if this is true, it creates a puzzle: why has school largely replaced apprenticeships as a mode for learning? The common answer is that apprenticeship works great for smithing and weaving, but modern work is mental. We need years of dedicated training inside the classroom […]

Today’s my birthday. Every year I share a birthday post with some personal reflections. Since this is now the fifteenth year I’ve been doing this, I won’t break tradition. The idea I’ve kept returning to this year is one of consolidation. Some of this is simply the changes imposed by parenthood. As I wrote previously, […]