What Matters

  • Lessons from Jane Little

    Jane Little was born in 1929 into a musical family. Her mother was a pianist who worked at her aunt’s dance studio. While they couldn’t afford a piano at home, Jane taught herself to play the piano using one at a neighbor’s home. Jane had hoped to become a ballerina...

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  • AI Threats to Our Brains

    Throughout history, what we value as a society has changed. Land, minerals, and manufacturing know-how have been the source of value for most of human history. In recent years, creative and critical thinking abilities have begun to shape national economies. It is only...

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  • Stress and Performance

    The Clarksville girls’ basketball team had rolled through their schedule. Emily Burton was averaging 30 points a game, and Clarksville was winning by a margin of 22 points. But the game against Martin High was incredibly close until midway through the last quarter....

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  • A Cure for Stupidity

    Intuitively, one would think that a cure for stupidity would be one of gaining more knowledge. That would be true, but knowledge in this case isn’t what we imagine it to be. The knowledge that can lead to a cure for stupidity is knowledge gained by studying oneself....

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  • Stupidity

    It has always been common for us to refer to another person as being stupid. What is different now is that those comments seem to have become acceptable as public statements intended to denigrate another. What is stupidity? That’s a word we often use, but...

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  • Self-Persuasion

    Ellen had just been asked to assume the plant manager role at one of the lowest-performing factories in the company. She decided that the factory needed a restart, but she also knew that coming in from the outside would make change difficult. She wanted to meet with...

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  • Self-Actualization

    It began as simply one part of a capstone course. Students were asked to demonstrate their ability to continue learning after college was over. Students could pick their own topic. Each week, they were asked to report on what they learned. They were also asked to...

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  • Daydreams

    Imagine the following situation. You are participating in a Zoom call. One of your colleagues is pontificating on a recent customer visit. You are working from home, and you hear your university’s marching band practicing. You cadence of the drum line invokes an...

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  • The Three Rs of Adulthood

    The three Rs of what it meant to be an educated person (Reading, wRiting, aRithmatic) had its origin in the early 19th Century. Much has changed in education since then, but the three Rs remain a focus of our public education system. What we need now is a new set of...

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  • Two Careers

    Hattie McDougal had begun to worry about her abilities. She was 48 years old and a highly successful business leader. She was the youngest employee to head up a major profit center for her company. Every year, she received the maximum bonus awarded by the Board of...

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