Executive Functioning
Executive functioning refers to the mental processes that help us plan, organize, remember, and regulate ourselves—and when they don’t align with school expectations, students are often punished for what they cannot control. This tag collects writing on ADHD, time blindness, working memory challenges, and the myth of “laziness.” It centres strategies, insights, and systemic critique grounded in neurodivergent experience.
-
Flourishing as an ethical imperative
Like many of you, I caught CBC’s Ideas episode the other day, where philosopher Angie Hobbs spoke about the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia—a term sometimes translated as happiness or welfare, but more richly understood as human flourishing. In a world flooded by crisis, it may seem indulgent or impractical to contemplate the good life,…
-
The cost of being careful: how punishment rewires the brain for fear, not learning
There are classrooms where children learn to think, and there are classrooms where children learn to be careful. Too often, we pretend they are the same. But when punishment—especially collective or public punishment—dominates the emotional tone of a learning space, what emerges is not intellectual risk-taking or social responsibility. What emerges is fear. Surveillance. A…
