London Calling Edition!

Homeschooling, the power of ideas, generational success, and jade plants!

I’ve been traveling a ton lately, which means I (a) picked up the nasty cold virus going around and (b) got to experience the start of spring weather for several weeks. I’ve seen daffodils, tulips, and cherry trees blooming on three continents!

I appreciate folks reaching out to see how the London Marathon went. Not well! I thought I was fully recovered from the cold, but despite feeling great for the first 11 miles, shortly after that my stamina quickly disappeared. So I jogged/walked it in and just enjoyed the incredible course and massive crowds. Finishing by Big Ben and the Palace was pretty amazing!

Something Short

I wrote this very short piece on the importance of ideas for the Educational Psychology division of the American Psychological Association. It’s a quick read and was fun to write. Here’s a link to the series.

Something a Bit More Involved

Annie Connolly-Sporing and I were honored to appear on the Homeschool Connections podcast. We discussed how the use of homeschooling by families of advanced students is under-discussed, and how the topic is very under-researched. A big thank you to host Christy Batts and the director of the Hopkins Homeschool Hub, Angela Watson.

Clicking below takes you to the Spotify or YouTube links, but you can find the podcast on all your favorite podcast players (someone told me they’re also called podcatchers now?).

Happy Stat of the Week!

I’ve previously shared links to studies showing that Millennials are doing quite well compared to past generations, even if the social media narrative is the exact opposite. This latest study looks specifically at pre- and post-task income, but there have been other studies looking at home ownership and other measures. Lots of positive data, but the following chart sums it up nicely.

Some of the improvement from generation to generation reflects increased work hours for women (which the study suggests has leveled off now, i.e., women have hit the ceiling of workable hours). But the belief that Millennials and Gen Zers will be the first generations not to do better than their parents is just plain false by almost every possible measure: As of today, each American generation continues to do better than their parents’ generation. The American dream is alive and well!

Some Things That Intrigued Me

Fighting pancreatic cancer. Like many of you, I’ve had friends and colleagues die from pancreatic cancer. But scientists are making real progress in fighting it using advanced tech. The latest clinical trials by RevMed provide evidence that their new drug is the biggest step toward a cure we’ve ever had (and it looks like the FDA is going to fast-track preliminary approval). It’s not a miracle drug, but it definitely helped patients with advanced disease survive significantly longer. The Mayo Clinic has also been using AI to detect the disease much earlier than previously possible (one reason it is so deadly is that catching it early is exceptionally rare). It’s easy to complain about health care, drug companies, etc., but we are on the cusp of a golden age of treatments for many diseases that have plagued humankind.

AEI education handbook. The free market think tank regularly publishes an online collection of papers describing key conservative education policy ideas. It tends to be a solid summary of key policy initiatives that often start popping up in states. Worth at least a skim.

Early career productivity really matters. We have lots of evidence that early career productivity matters. This latest study uses a large database of over 300,000 researchers to examine later-career productivity. Key take-aways: Early career productivity, collaborations, and international collaborations all predict later-career productivity. Lower productivity researchers tend to have diminished later-career productivity (i.e., start slow, get slower). This all jibes with my experiences: Start out strong, putting in the extra hours to create a good foundation, build your skill set, and network. Early success leads to additional success which leads to additional success, etc. And as my father often told us, this tends to lead to you creating your own luck. The most productive person I’ve known once told me that everyone thinks he still works 80 hours/week, when the average 20+ years into his career is closer to 35-40. But those initial power weeks forced him to build systems and habits that now allow him to work half as many hours with the same impressive productivity.¹ I can count on one hand the number of colleagues who started slow and found ways to become more productive later in their careers; that’s just really, really hard to do.

Cool event. NAGC is providing a webinar entitled, Should We Use the Term ‘Gifted’? on May 4 at 5:00PM ET. You can register here (free for members, otherwise $20). My colleague Matt Makel from UCalgary will be participating, among several leaders in the field.

Some Things That Interested Me

Your name in LANDSAT. This site is a fun, little diversion.

Bansky! I have never seen a Banksy in the wild, so to speak, but during my time in London a Banksy statue magically appeared!

Harry Potter! On the way home from London, I wanted some noise on in the background while I worked and napped. Nothing new was playing, so on a whim I watched the last two Harry Potter movies. They are better than I remembered, especially the penultimate one. I had another hour before landing and decided to watch part of the first movie. There were so many callbacks in the last two to the first one! That’s clever screenwriting. The F/X were also surprisingly good in the first movie. Many people have pointed this out, but CGI has become so much darker now in movies - in the first film, much of the CGI is in broad daylight.

Jade Plant of the Month

These three Jade beauties are outside the entrance to Poon’s Chinese restaurant in London. This variety has the traditional plump leaves, but they are longer and a bit more spoon-shaped. Note the dense clustering, which is pretty rare for jades in lower-light environments. Poon’s, by the way, is one of the best Chinese restaurants I’ve ever experienced!

Where to Find Me

email: jplucker@jhu.edu

http://Amazon.com/author/jonathanplucker

www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanplucker

https://twitter.com/JonathanPlucker

1. I find it funny that when someone implies he works insane hours, he never lies but also never corrects them!