Sagar Menon
@menonslibrary
Sagar Menon
“I know it when I see it”.
High agency is one of those “I know it when I see it” ideas. And once you see it – you can’t unsee it. Before I explain it, let’s see it.
High agency is one of those “I know it when I see it” ideas. And once you see it – you can’t unsee it. Before I explain it, let’s see it.
George Mack • High Agency In 30 Minutes
Student evaluations do not show that the best scholars are the best teachers. And when the claim that teaching and research are “mutually reinforcing” has been tested it has been squashed like a bug by a large volume of evidence. In 1996, four years before President Duderstadt addressed the topic, John Hattie and Herbert Marsh conducted a meta-anal... See more
The Teaching Problem
Instinct, in this deeper sense, is not a reflex. It is not a primal force that overrides reason. It is the fruit of formation. Over time, our habits and choices shape a kind of interior response to reality. When that response becomes aligned with the good, it can be trusted. When it is shaped by fear, pride, or imitation, it becomes a source of con... See more
Basic Instincts
High agency can be a confusing idea to understand because it’s not just one idea. It’s a combination of three distinct skills rarely found together:
- Clear thinking
- Bias to action
- Disagreeability
George Mack • High Agency In 30 Minutes
pedagogy is not content delivery. It is a relational, embodied, and context-rich process. It depends on trust, dialogue, spontaneity, eye contact, missteps, and encouragement. No AI system, no matter how sophisticated, can replicate the chemistry of a teacher who senses a student’s confusion and adapts - not by code, but by care.
Article
“The source of the status-quo trap lies deep within our psyches, in our desire to protect our egos from damage. Breaking from the status quo means taking action, and when we take action, we take responsibility, thus opening ourselves to criticism and to regret. Not surprisingly, we naturally look for reasons to do nothing. Sticking with the status ... See more
Rohin Dharmakumar • Omission biases and imagination deficits
He called this period the “Great Stagnation”, and he proposed a cultural solution rather than an economic one: raise the social status of scientists
Kids are curious, but the curiosity I mean has a different shape from kid
curiosity. Kid curiosity is broad and shallow; they ask why at
random about everything. In most adults this curiosity dries up
entirely. It has to: you can't get anything done if you're always
asking why about everything. But in ambitious adults, instead of
drying up, curiosity be... See more
curiosity. Kid curiosity is broad and shallow; they ask why at
random about everything. In most adults this curiosity dries up
entirely. It has to: you can't get anything done if you're always
asking why about everything. But in ambitious adults, instead of
drying up, curiosity be... See more
Paul Graham • What You'll Wish You'd Known
Doing great work is a depth-first search whose root node is the desire to. So "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" isn't quite right. It should be: If at first you don't succeed, either try again, or backtrack and then try again.