Sam Harrelson

Moving On From Wilson Hall

This week marks the end of a significant chapter in my life as our family says goodbye to Wilson Hall, where I have had the privilege of teaching AP Physics, Environmental Science, and Life Science and coaching golf (and Ben completed 2nd Grade, Emmy completed PK, and Lily was basically born this past school year). It’s hard to encapsulate the depth of my experience in a single post, but as I reflect on my time here, I am filled with gratitude and a sense of accomplishment.

From the early mornings prepping experiments to the late afternoons spent discussing complex theories before heading to the golf course, every moment has been a testament to the power of education and the joy of learning.

One of the highlights of my time here has been the field trips, like the recent one to Charleston, SC. Watching my students engage with the USS Yorktown, explore Fort Sumter, and marvel at the beauty of Magnolia Plantation reminded me why I chose this profession. These experiences extend learning beyond the classroom and foster a deeper connection to the world around us.

To my students: You have been the heart of my experience at Wilson Hall. Your curiosity, resilience, and eagerness to learn have been a constant source of inspiration. Keep questioning, exploring, and pushing the boundaries of your knowledge. The world needs your bright minds and passionate hearts!

As I move on, I am thrilled about the future and the new challenges that await me. I am particularly excited about my latest venture, StudiesLab, where I aim to create an innovative learning environment for gifted young people.

I wrote this 11 years ago when I left Carolina Day in Asheville, and it seems like a good passage to include here as well:

My views and philosophy on education necessitate that I follow a different path. I’m not exactly sure what that looks like (“the woods are lovely dark and deep”). Yet I know that drive will take me and my career down a road that is still covered in snow because I have miles to go before I sleep (beg pardon of Robert Frost there).

So what’s next? I have a couple of interviews at exciting schools but I also have the nagging persistence of StudiesLab.

StudiesLab is a business plan and educational model I’ve had written for years in my head (and on paper) of decentralized, cooperative and authentic education based not on 19th century content delivery for Victorian factory workers but on current research aimed at producing world changers. A place for round pegs in a world of square holes. A prayer for hope and humility and learning.

Or something like that.

Anxious Generation Study

Ted’s entire newsletter is a worthy read here, but this part about new research indicating that the current genertion of young people growing up in a phone-based culture (globally) is doing real harm and damage. It makes me think back to the tobacco industry trying to pretend that cigarettes don’t hurt people or the petroleum companies hiding the neurological effects of lead-infused gasoline and so on…

Crisis in the Culture: An Update – by Ted Gioia:

Haidt declared victory on social media: “There are now multiple studies showing that a heavily phone-based childhood changes the way the adolescent brain wires up, in many ways including cognitive control and reward valuation.”

We still need more research. But we can already see that we’re dealing with actual physiological decline, not just pundits’ opinions.

At this point, the debate isn’t over whether this is happening. Instead we now need to gauge the extent of the damage, and find ways of protecting people, especially kids.

Seafloor Sediment Superhighway

Not that bioturbation was on your “To Think About” list for today… but you should think about bioturbation and its role in the larger biosphere. Fascinating stuff!

Mapping the seafloor sediment superhighway | YaleNews:

“Our analysis suggests that the present global network of marine protected areas does not sufficiently protect important seafloor processes like bioturbation, indicating that protection measures need to be better catered to promote ecosystem health,” Tarhan said.

Clear Communication of Worth

Petersen here defies what many of us who have spent our lives in academia or adjacent to it in some way feel… the institutional impact of certain places on our careers, our self-judgements, and eventually our self-worth can be crucibles that define our lives for years. Seeing past that is indeed difficult work, especially when we want to confer respect for ourselves and our future students.

Worthy read here whether you’re a teacher, preacher, parent, or trying to figure things out at age 45 like me…

Ten Years Out of Academia – by Anne Helen Petersen:

When it comes to these students, the best gift we can give them — whether they are our children, our advisees, our peers, our employees, or just ourselves — is clear communication of worth. It’s spaces to fail with security and create and build community outside of resume-building. It’s ongoing assurance of their value: not because of their grades, or their ability to “work hard,” but simply because they are. It’s respect, which looks a lot different than surveillance. Creating these environments requires a lot of work, most of it invisible. It’s arduous in part because it requires refusing so many legible norms of “good” parenting or mentorship. But its eventual value is beyond measure.

AI and Bicycle of the Mind

I don’t have the same optimism that Thompson does here, but it’s a good read and worth the thought time!

The Great Flattening – Stratechery by Ben Thompson:

What is increasingly clear, though, is that Jobs’ prediction that future changes would be even more profound raise questions about the “bicycle for the mind” analogy itself: specifically, will AI be a bicycle that we control, or an unstoppable train to destinations unknown? To put it in the same terms as the ad, will human will and initiative be flattened, or expanded?

Reblog of Merianna Harrelson: The Screen Between

Reblog via Merianna Harrelson

Fifteen years ago, when I pursuing a Master’s in Literacy, we wondered and pondered about the impact of screens for readers. We questioned and discussed how literacy needed to be taught differently because of the availability of so much content and with so much reading occurring on a screen. I attended and participated in professional developments centered around “the screen between.” We discussed and debated how the screen between eliminated so many of the social cues and nonverbal communication that takes place between two people in person in conversations and in classrooms.

These discussions were way before so many people had a handheld device with a screen that fit in their pocket. Now as a minister, I find myself in conversations and debates about that same “screen between,” and how emboldened people feel to type something in a comment thread or text that they would never say to a person’s face.

And that’s just it. We don’t see each other anymore. The screen between us disconnects us from our joint humanity even as it advertises more connections and connetions from around the world.

As I have tried to be more intentional about my own use of screens, especially around our infant, I’ve noticed just how prevalent screens are. There is no small talk in the elevator or grocery store anymore because we are all looking down. Even restaurants have started to put screens on the tables and in their wait staff’s hands which I am sure streamlines the ordering process, but also interrupts the connection that you make with the person who is taking their time to serve you.

I can’t help but wonder when like Dorthy and her followers, we will discover the man behind the curtain or rather the fellow humans behind the screens. While these devices may seem just as great and powerful as the Wizard of Oz, there’s something missing and something we are all longing for. Eventually we are going to have to decide whether we want a screenshot of life, a projection of what appears to be or whether we want to live life with and among those that surround us.

We all want to be seen. We all want to know that we aren’t on this journey alone. But in order to do that, we are going to have to put away the screen between us and look each other in the eyes and say, “I am here. You are here. And here we are together.”

The post The Screen Between appeared first on Merianna Neely Harrelson.

Why I am Using a Light Phone

I have lots more to say about this, but I wanted to share this vital part of a recent article about “dumbphones” in The New Yorker. I’ve been attempting to be much more deliberate about using technology and devices, especially in front of my children and students.

The Light Phone (and Camp Snap camera) have been a significant part of that effort. I’ve been in love with the Light Phone since converting from an iPhone earlier this year.

The Dumbphone Boom Is Real | The New Yorker:

Like Dumbwireless, Light Phone has recently been experiencing a surge in demand. From 2022 to 2023, its revenue doubled, and it is on track to double again in 2024, the founders told me. Hollier pointed to Jonathan Haidt’s new book, “The Anxious Generation,” about the adverse effects of smartphones on adolescents. Light Phone is receiving increased inquiries and bulk-order requests from churches, schools, and after-school programs. In September, 2022, the company began a partnership with a private school in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to provide Light Phones to the institution’s staff members and students; smartphones are now prohibited on campus. According to the school, the experiment has had a salutary effect both on student classroom productivity and on campus social life. Tang told me, “We’re talking to twenty to twenty-five schools now.”

Greatest Beatles Song

I’m not one to argue with Elvis Costello and I love re-reading this list every so often (especially in a new year). However, In My Life shoud be the #1 Beatles song.

100 Greatest Beatles Songs:

Before that album, “We were just writing songs à la the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly,” Lennon said, “pop songs with no more thought to them than that.” He rightly called “In My Life” “my first real, major piece of work. Up until then, it had all been glib and throwaway.”