Teach Me

Education Is Still Playing Goliath’s Game By Jason T. Rogers There’s a TED Talk I keep coming back to—Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Unheard Story of David and Goliath.” You’ve probably heard the story before. A young shepherd, a giant warrior, an impossible battle—and a surprising victory. It’s one of the most well-known underdog stories in history. But Gladwell asks us to slow down… and really look at what happened. Because maybe David wasn’t the underdog at all. Maybe he won not despite the odds, but because he refused to play by Goliath’s rules . And that’s where my mind goes straight to education. What If We’ve Misunderstood Strength? Gladwell unpacks how we often misunderstand power. Goliath, on the surface, seems unbeatable—tall, armored, experienced. But he’s slow. He expects a hand-to-hand battle. That’s the only game he knows how to play. David doesn’t fight that game. He shows up with something different—a sling, some stones, and a strategy nobody saw coming. It’s no...

The Neurons That Shaped Civilization By Jason T. Rogers I recently came across a TED Talk by neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran , and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.  The topic? Mirror neurons —a small but powerful set of brain cells that might be one of the biggest reasons we’ve been able to build culture, language, and civilization itself. Ramachandran explains it like this: when you watch someone else do something—like picking up a cup of coffee—your brain activates the same neurons as if you were doing it yourself. You’re not just seeing the action. You’re experiencing it internally. That’s what mirror neurons do. Why It Matters At first glance, this might seem like a neat scientific detail. But Ramachandran makes a bigger point: mirror neurons are the foundation for imitation, empathy, and learning . And that changes everything. If we can feel what others feel, we can learn from their experiences. We can share stories, build tools, teach each ot...

Home School Stigma On Homeschooling, Stigma, and the Future of Learning I grew up homeschooled. I remember begging my parents to let me attend public school halfway through my sophomore year. When I finally did, I tried hard to hide where I’d come from—my past felt like something I needed to keep quiet. “They’ll think I’m weird.” “They’ll assume I’m from some strict religious family.” “They’ll think I have social problems.” The anxiety ran deep. And I wasn’t the only one who felt it. The stigma around homeschooling has been around for decades. Many people still carry this idea that homeschooled kids are either socially awkward or raised in isolation by overbearing parents trying to keep their children away from the world. And truthfully? That’s not just made up. There is a part of homeschooling’s history that’s tied to that kind of thinking—where parents pulled their kids out of school not to educate them better, but to shield them from difference, from culture, from connection. Bu...

Learn Out Loud Rethinking Education, Passion, and Work in the Modern Economy By Jason T. Rogers There’s this old idea that still floats around: The more formal education you get, the more money you’ll make. It’s the kind of message that gets repeated so often, we stop questioning it. But if you look at the economy today—how people work, how they earn, and how they build careers—you’ll start to see something different. That idea isn’t holding up the way it used to. In fact, for a lot of people, it’s become a myth that quietly leads them toward low-paying jobs and overwhelming debt . Not because they’re not smart. Not because they’re not capable. But because the education system and the workforce have drifted out of alignment. The Real Currency: Passion + Skills If you want to thrive in this economy, you don’t just need a degree—you need something more personal. You need to know what you care about. What lights you up. And then you need to build practical skills around that ...

What Classrooms Can Learn from Video Games By Jason T. Rogers I’m not a big gamer—not by a long shot. But I’ve always found games fascinating . There’s something about how they pull people in. How they make failure feel okay. How they teach you something new without even feeling like you’re being taught. And honestly, I think classrooms have a lot to learn from that. I recently watched a short video that explains this better than I ever could. It’s called “How Game Designers Protect Newbies” by Game Maker’s Toolkit. It’s less than ten minutes, and it’s packed with insights that go way beyond gaming. Watch here → Game Maker’s Toolkit: How Game Designers Protect Newbies Confidence First, Challenge Later One of the biggest takeaways from the video is this: good games start by helping players feel confident . Not overwhelmed. Not lost. But capable. In game design, this technique is sometimes called "fue strategies" —short for fun, understanding, and engagement . The id...

Schools today have this concept called "weeding out". This is what they define as a hard class that separates the committed from the wishy washy's. I don't know how this concept got into school, It could be someones way of being lazy because they don't want to update their curriculum. These classes betray the student, create drop outs and They destroy dreams which in the end makes up all the people in all the jails worldwide and puts bombs on the street.  Colleges are not the only schools with this mentality of "Weeding out". Middle school and high school have classes that teachers will refer to them as "weeding out" classes. These classes are hard because they are poorly taught classroom settings.  Class must be as well organized and engaging as a game.  Here is a great video examples. Replace game with class and designer as teacher and we are now talking about the right type of classes. Teaching is just like designing a game. You...

Here is a video that stresses my point on how things are run and how they could be run. after you're done watching this video read my next comments. Imagine now with me a classroom that looks like this? Teachers are replaced with life coaches and Personal goal charts. Students are given a gaming ID or can use their own gaming IDs they already have from the Xbox, Wii, or other systom. They are allowed to come in and play at any time and are only chards $50 a month or $3 per day or they can sign up for a sponsor. They can play whatever they want. When they are ready to get serious with their education they come to a life coach and say something like "I'm done just playing these games for fun I want to go into engineering" The coach and student sit down together and look over what he or she has played already. The Coach share what the student still needs to learn and gives him an option and a list of games that teach that skill.  In every game th...

Rethinking How We Learn By Jason T. Rogers This space—this blog—is something I’m building with intention. A place to gather tools, videos, and conversations that support both teachers and learners . Not just in mastering content, but in reshaping how we think about education itself. One video I want to share with you today gets right to the heart of that. It’s a TED Talk by Anant Agarwal , a professor at MIT and head of edX , a platform many of you might already know. He opens with a simple but bold statement: “I’d like to start by reimagining education.” And that’s exactly what he does over the next 15 minutes. A New Model for Learning Agarwal lays out a concept he calls blended learning —a mix of digital learning tools and in-person teaching. It’s not about replacing teachers or classrooms. It’s about enhancing the way students learn by combining the best of both worlds. The first part of the model uses online learning platforms , where students get instant feedback ...