Jeffrey Alexander Martin

There are two main steps to making things better: one is problem finding, two is problem solving. Each of these five works does both, but they find and solve very different problems.  'Black Excellence - The Case of Dunbar High School' by Thomas Sowell 1975 Sowell is wonderful. He's an economic historian, which is a great combination because he digs into the statistical data as well as the history. He's autobiography is a great book and shows that he worked in the real world before academia, and worked in government, which helped open his eyes to how that works so poorly. From high school dropout to leading American intellectual, he has a good story and good arguments. He's also a photographer, and was a US Marine. Interesting people are often complex. In this article Sowell points out that people commonly study failures in black education, and seemingly purposefully ignore the successes. This goes over an all-black high school that succeeded for a long time, from 1...

In this volume we visit pre-WW2 Poland, pre-communist revolution Russia, post-revolutionary war United States, England between the world wars, and modern China. It's a journey. 'Janusz Korczak: The Man Who Knew How to Love Children' by Itzchak Belfer 2018 Belfer grew up in an orphanage in Poland started and run by Henryk Goldszmit and Stefania Wilczynska in the early 1900s. Goldszmit was famous under the pen name Janusz Korczak for a few successful children's books he wrote, including one that's similar to Harry Potter. Korczak was also a medical doctor. When the Nazis were rounding up Jews in Poland Korczak could have gotten out because he was famous and had offers, but he would have had to abandon the kids, about 200 of them. He and Stefa stayed with the kids, went to Treblinka with them, and died. Belfer had fled Poland for Russia two years earlier when he was 16, kids generally left the orphan school at 14. Korczak's organization is astounding. He ran the or...

These five works range from the year 1751 to 2014. That's 263 years of interesting thoughts on education. 'Idea of the English School' by Benjamin Franklin 7 January 1751 Benjamin Franklin is an amazing person. The more you learn about him the more amazing he is. He was abused as an indentured servant by his brother and became a runaway. Became wealthy as a printer and famous as a scientist. His autobiography started modern self-help literature. He drew political cartoons and wrote popular life advice. He wrote a piece on population growth that inspired Malthus, who inspired Darwin to come up with evolution. He taught swimming in England. He invented bifocal glasses and a new type of stove. He was a colonel in the Pennsylvania militia, and later President of Pennsylvania. He convinced France to support the US in the Revolutionary War, which helped win it. He proved lightning is electricity. He started the post office. He started fire services and libraries. It's therefo...

It would appear that large countries consume smaller countries, in the same way large fish consume smaller fish. However, many small countries continue to exist. Sometimes large countries break into smaller countries, conquered colonies and territories break away from empires, and sometimes a large country just can't conquer a smaller country. Not being able to be conquered largely comes down to two decisions. One, are the people patriotic and willing to fight the foreign power? Two, are the people armed? If the answer to both of these is yes, then it's extremely unlikely that even the strongest country can conquer the weakest country. Theoretically the stronger country could kill everyone in the smaller country, but it's difficult to garner the support of the people necessary to carry out a genocide like that. It's possible, just unlikely. The United States offers several examples. The US, the most powerful country in the world, one of two world super powers along with...

These five people were all deep into academia, education, and schools, and in different ways all came to very strong criticisms against a failing and broken system. I largely agree with all of them. 'Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling' by John Taylor Gatto John Tayler Gatto was a public school teacher for decades. He won both the New York City Teacher of the Year and New York State Teacher of the Year awards. Eventually he left public schools and wrote books on how schooling harms children. Two quotes from the book will help you see key insights: “Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your roadmap through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how...

In this article I include two short fictional works, one memoir and advice book, one letter, and one speech. The crazy thing is, each of them has excellent lessons for education, teaching, and learning. 'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever' by Barbara Robinson This is a 1972 book that was made into a movie in 2024. In 2025 my mother saw it and highly recommended it. It didn't sound that good, but during the 2025 Christmas season I watched it a few times. Then, when my mother and I were driving across Michigan to the airport when I was leaving to Costa Rica we listened to the audiobook, and it was good too. The story is about a horrible family of kids that are bullies and force themselves into the Christmas pageant at a church. Being interested in the pageant, first for food, and then because they get to live out stories of other's lives, they're interested in learning about the Christmas story. They even go to a library and research. It's a good example of how schoo...