The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation spent 10 years and $575 million on a program aimed at improving teacher effectiveness and increasing student achievement. The result after a decade and all that money? Complete failure. So, what did the program look like, and what went wrong? Essentially, the Gates Foundation provided funding to three schools, […]
Author: Neven
Emotional needs and child rearing
I’m returning to my bus after a short break we just made after 3 hours of driving. As I return to my seat I notice a lady and her daughter sitting few seats beside me. The daughter is crying. Her mom starts consoling her but what transpired was the most comical misunderstanding of needs I’ve […]
The Biggest Misconception in Pedagogy
I’m standing in front of my lab assistant who’s visibly angry with me: „They don’t know the basics of the for loop! If you taught them, they would know!“ Never mind that half of the group truly understands those basics and that the entire last group had no problems with their assignments, but if one […]
Democratic school introductory class in a traditional school
It’s my first day and I am intentionally arriving late because I want all of my students to be there when I arrive. This morning I spent half an hour choosing what to wear. Mind you that I’m a guy. Finally, I chose a black button-up shirt, black pants, my leather jacket and Aviator sunglasses. […]
The biggest misconception about Rome
Rome doesn’t have a lot of public bathrooms and there’s an urban myth circulating for years which says that Rome has a law that all bars and restaurants need to allow non-customers the use of their bathrooms. That’s false! The true law states that: all bars and restaurants need to have a working bathroom for […]
Pokemon: Rational Origins
This is a fanfiction I wrote for a contest on the /r/Rational subreddit. The contest was to write a rational deconstruction of an anime or manga. As a young boy I was always bugged with logical inconsistencies in the Pokemon world so I chose Pokemon! I really liked the angle of the story and I […]
9 pro tips for travel I picked up while traveling around Europe
Traveling is easy. You pick a destination, choose a way of travel and go there. You find a way to pass time on the road; some people talk with strangers, some prefer books or video games and some prefer to stare through the window in silence. In the end it doesn’t matter because either way […]
Geeks and love
I have a back and forth conversation about girls with my friend for couple of years now. He’s a really smart and intelligent geeky guy that spends more time on Reddit looking at cute anime girls than hanging out with real people. He has strong social anxiety and he doesn’t really care for social hobbies. “Everyone has […]