If I know you're very good in music, I can predict with just about zero accuracy whether you're going to be good or bad in other things.

We've got to do fewer things in school. The greatest enemy of understanding is coverage... You've got to take enough time to get kids deeply involved in something so they can think about it in lots of different ways and apply it.

Twenty-five years ago, the notion was you could create a general problem-solver software that could solve problems in many different domains. That just turned out to be totally wrong.

No individual can be in full control of his fate-our strengths come significantly from our history, our experiences largely from the vagaries of chance. But by seizing the opportunity to leverage and frame these experiences, we gain agency over them. And this heightened agency, in turn, places us in a stronger position to deal with future experiences, even as it may alter our own sense of strengths and possibilities.

Much of the material presented in schools strikes students as alien, if not pointless.

Any profession should have norms around the issue you raise. And, in the words of the great economic thinker Albert Hirschman, we all owe a measure of loyalty to professional norms. But when the norms seem unhelpful or unproductive, one needs to speak up - to activate voice. And in the extreme, if the profession and one's colleagues seem estranged from a thoughtfully selected course of action, you need to consider the possibility of exit. Of course, if you knowingly violate norms or laws, you need to be prepared to face the consequences - or to lead a revolution!

I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place