Professor Kris

I have long been an advocate for free access to information and education at every level. However, in the United States and in many areas of the world, free higher education is not the reality. And arguable, there is something to be said to the quality of education being tied to the expense - but that is a debate for another time. As a university professor, I often get asked by people who don't have the means to afford higher education, how they can improve their situation. Usually, they indicate they would like to do this through obtaining a university degree, and I have no advice on affording college beyond the usual - apply for scholarships, go part-time and work part-time, join the US military for a few years to be eligible for a Pell Grant... But I DO have advice on learning - you do not need to go to college to learn the content material you get from a college education. Now, let me also say that a university degree is more than knowledge. There is networking, debating,...

Every parent struggles with the first day school for their first-born child. I am no different, but as an education specialist, I have very high standards that every one of my children's teachers use evidence-based teaching techniques. I knew when I walked into my oldest child's kindergarten classroom, we were going to have issues, because on the wall, next to the whiteboard, sat a behavior chart. You know the type, some ranking system that allows a teacher to move a student up or down according to the choices they make in the classroom... see what I did there? I just reframed the topic from behavior to choices. Because the behavior is the symptom, and the choice is the cause. Even the name "behavior chart" makes me pull my hair out, because we cannot help children change their behavior. We CAN and SHOULD help them identify their choices and make good choices, which results in better behavior.  But I digress from the topic of the loathsome behavior chart. Classroom ...

As a society, we have come to expect higher education to shape our children’s future and set them on their path to becoming productive adults. Students and their parents pay tens-of-thousands of dollars in order to realize their expectations, yet often overlook the roadblocks that have been placed in the way long before they ever set foot inside a college classroom, they’ve lost the ability to ask one of the most fundamental questions of childhood: “Why?” As with most issues, the problem starts at the beginning – when you, as a parent, have lost patience with your toddler repeatedly asking “why?”   Parents around the world groan when their young child starts the stage of incessantly asking this question over and over. When my two-year-old wants candy at the store after I’ve told her “no,” with multiple explanations, and she has asked for the eighth time “but why?” I want to pull my hair out. It’s easy for the busy parent to wish their toddler would just stop asking...