RefinED Friends,

You may have run across a recent compilation from @Amazing_Maps that labels each of the fifty US states with the most common word that auto-completed this sentence in a Google search: "Why is ___(state name)___ so...?"

The results are sometimes predictable, occasionally telling, and relatively consistent with societal stereotypes.    

With this in mind, I decided to apply the same curiosity to education-related questions. According to Google's auto-complete function, which highl...
Continue reading ...

RefinED Friends,

Today, two weeks post leg surgery, I visited my surgeon for a follow up appointment.  In four weeks, I can return to my athletic passion--running.  "Go slow," the surgeon warned me.  "The biggest mistake people make after a surgery like this is trying to get back to it too quickly.  Go slow."

Confession:  I am not a patient person.  

"But Scott," you say, "aren't you a teacher?  Doesn't that necessitate patience?"  

True, in the classroom I can often channel my patience in servic...
Continue reading ...

RefinED Friends,

I believe strongly in the transformative work that takes place at this conference.  Twice, I have been privileged enough to serve as a staff facilitator.  I will again in 2015.  Please read the information below and share this information with any students you feel would benefit.

Life Skills Conference 2014

Every summer the Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation brings children ages 12-17 from throughout the world to the Patton Campus in Elizabethtown, PA to experience wh...

Continue reading ...

RefinED Friends,

Jay Giedd, Jean Decety, Lauren Howard.  Do these names ring a bell?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Regardless, they know your brain.  They're in your heads.

I'm a professed neuroscience geek.  Over the last few years, I've become increasingly fascinated by studies involving Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and concentrated research connecting social emotional learning and childhood brain development.  Technology now allows scientists to map active regions of the brain as i...
Continue reading ...

Friends:

A popular Greek myth is that of Theseus and the Minotaur.  As the story goes, King Minos of Crete, after an attack on Athens, was asked by the Athenian king for a truce.  In return for peace in Athens, every nine years the Athenian king would send seven Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls to Crete as food for The Minotaur in its labyrinth.

Now before you click the "New Tab" button on your browser, wondering all the while why RefinED Character chose its first blog post to feature chi...
Continue reading ...