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...