Bullying is not the only problem with schooling, but it is one that literally brings violence into children’s lives, and in worst case scenarios it ends lives. In this essay series we laid out five actionable steps that schools need to take…
read moreThe fifth step schools can take to end bullying is to focus on promoting empathy in the school community. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. When people are able to see the world through the eyes…
read moreNothing carries the day in education quite like culture. A great culture allows all members of a community to feel valued and loved, it promotes and contributes to learning, and serves as a bulwark against bullying. But in order to experience all…
read moreWhile this essay series focuses on the problem of bullying, I would like to take a step back for a moment and address self-motivation, which is critical to academic and life success. Self-motivation is what makes or breaks many people once they…
read moreIt is Election Day 2016, and as I look around at Abrome, I recognize that the people in our community who will be most impacted by this election are the ones who are too young to vote. Our Learning Coaches (the adults)…
read moreWe previously pointed out that the first step to ending school bullying was to end age segregation.[1] The second step is to eliminate competition and grades. The most overt (and odious) function of schooling is a sorting function. Edward Thorndike, the father…
read moreI recently stumbled upon a Quora question posted by a parent who wanted to know if she should speak to her daughter’s teacher, who is a bully, about the teacher’s treatment of her daughter. The Quora question asked: “My daughter’s 1st grade…
read moreAt Abrome, we are currently trying to build an educational alternative that will eradicate the traditional model of schooling. Our blog posts generally revolve around what we do at Abrome and how various educational theories, psychological research, and economic and sociological realities…
read moreImagine the following experiment. Researchers place hundreds of rats into a large cage. The rats are then separated into groups of about 20, and each group is placed in their own partitioned space within the cage. The rats are not permitted to…
read moreA 2013 CDC Study found that 19.6% of youths had been bullied on school property in the previous 12 months, and 14.8% had been electronically bullied.[1] In a 2011 National Crime Victimization Survey, close to 1.2 million students reported that someone was…
read moreThis week is national Banned Books Week, an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. In recognition of Banned Books Week, we wanted to share the thinking behind the building of the Abrome library. Abrome holds the radical belief that young people…
read more“A society free of compulsory or coercive schooling, where young people are celebrated for their contributions to society, and where they all have the confidence to believe that they can improve the human condition.” [1] Abrome was not envisioned because we believed…
read moreFive books we are currently reading: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2 Learners) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Teach Your Own by John Holt Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Life of Pi by Yann Martel Last…
read more“How will children learn what they need to know if you don’t teach it to them? How do you know they are on track?” These are the two questions we most often receive from parents and educators when we explain that the…
read moreThe Stanford University Office of Undergraduate Admission just released their application numbers for the Class of 2020, and for the fourth consecutive year they earn the enviable but not necessarily laudable distinction of being the most selective college in America. Also, in…
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