Jon > Recent Status Updates

“Until students believe they have some measure of influence over their future, they see no need to continue striving.”

“Perseverance is not merely goal setting or problem solving. Nor is it just being willing to go the extra mile. Perseverance is the ability to see a long-range goal, set the goal, define the steps, work toward each step, and deal with obstacles and setbacks as they arise.”

“The good news is research indicates that perseverance is a malleable quality and certainly worth the effort to help develop in students despite their academic success or risk factors. Every one of our students - affluent, middle class, and poverty stricken - will encounter adversity in his or her lifetime.”

“But many scientists today consider the heritability of IQ to be much lower than 75 to 85 percent. This environmentalist camp estimates heritability to be .50 or less . . . And I agree with these scientists—in fact I suspect heritability may be even lower than .50.”

“My neurons number half a billion, and they are distributed among my eight arms. On occasion, I have wondered whether I might have more intelligence in a single tentacle than a human does in its entire skull.”

“Populist anti-elitism reflects anger against three different types of elites: business elites, political elites, and cultural elites. The Far Right typically targets cultural and political elites; the Left needs to redirect the anger toward economic elites, acknowledge the failings of political elites, and learn how to avoid making themselves the target of anger against cultural elites.”

“Anti-intellectualism and resentment of experts are abiding elements of the American class structure. Both represent the class anger of order-takers against order-givers.”

“What working-class families need are family-sustaining jobs to address people’s desire for dignity, meaning, marriage, and cash.”