I’ve recently found myself wrestling with the issue of behavior and principle. An ardent skeptic of behavioral theory and the idea that all that matters is the function of our actions, not the intent behind them, I feel the need to bloviate on the topic for a bit. My basic approach to the issue of behavior versus principle can be summed up thus: a strong, principled moral compass leads to observable and often desired behaviors, but simply demonstrating principled, moral behav

These last few weeks I’ve had some special interactions with students from all walks of life that have made me think about how memory, scaffolding, and exposing ourselves to a variety of experiences helps us learn and sustain the motivation to learn over the course of a lifetime. Can I fit some of the most prescient points of these thoughts into two pages? Let’s see.             I’ve been struck by many students’ belief that learning is just memorizing a series of unrelated s

I didn’t consciously plan my approach to the order in which I approached discussing the elements of music, but it seems apt to end this little intro series by discussing melody. As I’ve contemplated melody, I become increasingly convinced that it is the most paradoxical of the musical elements. Ask anyone to sing a familiar melody to you, and they probably can (albeit out of tune, but you get the picture). However, if you ask someone what a melody is, let alone what makes a g