The hottest Education Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Education Topics

Are we looking for the cause of Gen Z anxiety in the wrong place?

Make Work Better • 152 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
🚌 Education Child development Mental health School Policy
  1. Children now get much less independence and free, unsupervised play than past generations, which reduces their chance to learn risk‑taking, decision‑making and a sense that their actions matter.
  2. This loss of autonomy helps explain rising mental‑health problems and economic inactivity among young people, and it predates smartphones so screens aren’t the whole story.
  3. Employers and policymakers should rebuild chances to practice independence — accepting some friction and deliberately training initiative, ambiguity tolerance and responsibility in schools and workplaces.

Down the Rabbit Hole (On Purpose)

Gad’s Newsletter • 97 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
🚌 Education Pedagogy Learning Science Mentorship EdTech Higher education Instructional Design Lifelong learning
  1. Learning has three layers: domain knowledge (the what), methods (the how), and mindsets/wisdom (the why). Facts fade and methods need practice, but mindsets and wisdom endure and shape long-term judgment.
  2. AI will make domain knowledge and many techniques cheap and widely available, so educational time should be reinvested in mentorship, judgment, and mindset cultivation. AI can simulate scenarios to practice decision-making, but it can’t replace lived experience and human feedback.
  3. Durable learning requires spaced retrieval, varied practice, reflection, and apprenticeship, not just one-off content delivery. Classroom detours or 'rabbit holes' are often deliberate ways to build transferable judgment and help students learn when to trust a model and when to rely on intuition.

The UATX Brand

In My Tribe • 410 implied HN points • 03 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher education Curriculum Accreditation Funding Branding Campus politics Partnerships
  1. UATX presents itself as a traditional, non-ideological liberal arts school focused on Great Books and in-person learning, but many outsiders mainly see it as a right-wing counter-institution.
  2. The institution is caught between three conflicting identities — a rigorous classical college, a conservative ideological project, or a political movement — and trying to be all three at once looks unsustainable.
  3. AI advisers recommend a pivot to a 'Practical Liberal Arts' combining a Great Books core with project-based, industry-linked concentrations and transparent outcomes, but the free-tuition, donor-dependent funding model could make the school prioritize donors over students.

The Department of Education Isn’t Going Anywhere

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 190 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🚌 Education Federal Policy K-12 Higher education Federal Agencies Congress
  1. Despite a presidential executive order to shut it down, the Department of Education is still operating and its budget was increased.
  2. Congress — with Democrats and some Republicans pushing back — refused to abolish the agency and approved $79 billion in funding, more than the White House requested.
  3. Executive orders alone can’t eliminate a federal agency, and appropriations plus political resistance kept the department intact and growing.
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A Modern-Day Academic Rapprochement

Heterodox STEM • 135 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher education Academic Freedom Campus politics Corporate Influence
  1. DEI ideas that started on campus have spread into big corporations and now shape hiring and workplace culture, which critics say undermines merit-based advancement and open debate.
  2. Corporate leaders can and do pressure universities—using partnerships and donations—to push administrators to rebuke or silence faculty who criticize DEI, creating a chilling effect on academic freedom.
  3. University administrations often respond by issuing bland DEI statements and promoting bias training instead of defending free speech, though there is growing political and public pushback against this trend.

Working memory: one of the most important things to understand about learning

The Bell Ringer • 519 implied HN points • 19 Jul 24
🚌 Education Learning Psychology Teaching Methods Cognitive Science Research
  1. Working memory is crucial for learning because it helps us hold and process information. Understanding how it works can improve teaching methods.
  2. Many teachers in the U.S. aren't trained on working memory, which limits their ability to support students effectively. Better training can help teachers use this knowledge in classrooms.
  3. Memorizing basic facts, like math facts, is important for building a strong foundation in learning. When students know these facts, they can focus on more complex problems.

How to Get a Standing Ovation

Remarkable People • 319 implied HN points • 07 Aug 24
🚌 Education Public Speaking Communication Audience engagement Storytelling
  1. Make sure you have something meaningful to say in your speech. Think about what your audience needs to hear instead of just what you want to say.
  2. Know your audience really well. Conduct research or polls to understand what messages will resonate with them and tailor your speech accordingly.
  3. Engage your audience with personal stories and humor. This makes your speech more relatable and keeps people interested.

Top 5 Communication Frameworks for Engineers You Must Remember

High Growth Engineer • 1108 implied HN points • 16 Nov 25
🚌 Education Communication Mentorship Teaching Presentation Feedback
  1. Use the PREP framework to make strong arguments. Start with your main point, explain why it matters, give an example, and restate your point to make it memorable.
  2. The GROW framework helps you set clear goals and create action plans. It breaks down where you are now and what steps you need to take to reach your goal.
  3. Use BLUF to communicate effectively by starting with your key message first. This helps busy people get to the important part right away and stay focused.

What’s Missing?

Remarkable People • 759 implied HN points • 27 Jun 24
🚌 Education Motivation Life lessons Inspiration Personal Growth
  1. Asking 'What's missing?' helps you see where improvements can be made. It's a great question to avoid mistakes and think critically about any situation.
  2. Learning from experienced and remarkable people can inspire new ideas. Their stories can guide you in your own journey and help you grow.
  3. Commencement speeches often get forgotten, but focusing on one key message can make it memorable. Simplifying your takeaways can create a lasting impact.

Motivation 101 by Guy Kawasaki

Remarkable People • 519 implied HN points • 17 Jul 24
🚌 Education Motivation Personal Growth Storytelling Life lessons Self-help
  1. What really matters is that you find something that motivates you, no matter what it is. It doesn't have to be a big or noble goal; any drive can lead to success.
  2. Your personal experiences can shape what inspires you. For example, wanting a better car can be just as motivating as wanting to change the world.
  3. Don't stress too much about the nature of your motivations. What's important is that you are motivated to work hard and strive for your goals.

The pandemic's lesson on teacher licensure

Slow Boring • 4048 implied HN points • 17 Jan 24
🚌 Education Policy Pandemic impact
  1. Consider reevaluating teacher licensing requirements to improve access to quality educators.
  2. During the pandemic, emergency measures allowed flexibility and potentially revealed unnecessary licensing barriers.
  3. Evaluating and potentially removing certain licensing requirements can save time and money while increasing the pool of potential teachers.

The Speaker The University Didn’t Want Me to Invite

Juan David’s Newsletter • 6 implied HN points • 19 Mar 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Student life Administration Free speech Student activism
  1. Campus bureaucracy can create slow, intimidating, and unnecessary barriers that make it hard for students to organize simple events.
  2. Persistence, creative problem-solving, and leaning on friends or technical know-how can overcome institutional roadblocks and get things done.
  3. Bringing challenging ideas to campus matters for intellectual growth and personal confidence, and successfully hosting them shows what student initiative can achieve.

Replay: What parents should know about the science of learning

The Bell Ringer • 339 implied HN points • 02 Aug 24
🚌 Education Learning Science School Kids
  1. Understanding how children learn can help parents support their education better. It's important to know what methods work best for different types of learners.
  2. Staying involved in your child's education can make a big difference. Regular communication with teachers and participation in school activities can help children succeed.
  3. Encouraging a growth mindset in children is key. Teach them that making mistakes is part of learning and that effort leads to improvement.

Strong Public Support To Restrict Social Media for Children in Germany

After Babel • 625 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🚌 Education Education & Policy Digital Media Child welfare Public Opinion Mental health
  1. A large majority of adults favor a minimum social media age of 16, and many adolescents—especially 16–17 year olds—also support restricting younger teens despite near-universal daily use.
  2. Both adults and teenagers report strong concerns that social media harms young people’s mental and physical health, attention, and school performance, while only information gathering is seen as a clear benefit.
  3. Adults are much more negative about social media overall than adolescents and many would prefer a world without it, implying that policies like a 16+ age minimum would have broad public support.

AI has Educators Polarized

In My Tribe • 561 implied HN points • 09 Dec 25
🚌 Education AI Impact Teaching Methods Learning theories Student Engagement Curriculum Development
  1. AI has split opinions in education, with some saying it helps and others claiming it harms learning. Understanding these views depends on how one sees the relationship between teachers and students.
  2. If you believe students resist learning, you might think AI makes education worse because it allows for shortcuts. On the other hand, if you see students as eager learners, you might view AI as a helpful tool that offers personalized support.
  3. Educators should consider the positive potential of AI. Instead of rejecting it outright, they should explore ways it can enhance teaching while also adapting their methods to address any challenges it presents.

How to Apologize

Remarkable People • 379 implied HN points • 24 Jul 24
🚌 Education Personal Development Communication Skills Leadership Psychology Relationships
  1. A good apology has three key parts: saying 'I'm sorry', taking responsibility for what you did, and showing that you understand the hurt it caused.
  2. People often struggle to apologize because they think it makes them look weak, but admitting mistakes can actually make you stronger and more respected.
  3. Effective apologies should be followed up with actions to prevent the same mistakes, make amends, and ask for feedback to improve.

Summer (un)Schooling

Austin Kleon • 9052 implied HN points • 02 Jun 23
🚌 Education Unschooling Hobbies Outdoor activities Creative Expression
  1. Summer is a great time for unschooling, which means learning and having fun outside of traditional classrooms. It's a chance to explore and rest at the same time.
  2. Getting outside is important, whether it’s through walking, biking, or gardening. Nature can inspire and refresh you.
  3. Do what makes you happy, whether that's reading for fun, trying new hobbies, or just relaxing. It’s all about enjoying yourself and having a good time.

Substack and Other Blog Recommendations

Don't Worry About the Vase • 3404 implied HN points • 30 Jun 25
🚌 Education Blogs Writing Rhetoric Recommendations Literacy
  1. Writing on Substack can help you gain subscribers, especially through recommendations from other blogs. It's a system that works well for networking.
  2. Choosing which blogs to recommend is important, and it's better to focus on quality over quantity. Recommendations should be meaningful and relevant to your audience.
  3. Engaging with diverse perspectives is valuable. Reading voices you don't always agree with can provide new ideas and challenge your thinking.

Does Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) improve academic outcomes?

The Science of Learning • 219 implied HN points • 12 Aug 24
🚌 Education Learning Research Curriculum Instruction Assessment
  1. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) helps students with their emotions and relationships but it's unclear if it boosts academic performance. Some studies show positive impacts, while others do not.
  2. Different schools use SEL in varied ways, making it tough to gauge its true effectiveness. This inconsistency leads to mixed results in research about SEL's benefits.
  3. There's no strong evidence that SEL reduces the achievement gap or promotes equity in education. More focused studies are needed to really understand SEL's long-term effects.

How I Write Posts

Construction Physics • 21087 implied HN points • 19 Feb 24
🚌 Education Writing Research Reading Editing Tools
  1. The author's writing process involves mainly two types of posts: explanation-driven and exploratory. They often write to understand complex topics themselves and then share their findings.
  2. Extensive research is a crucial part of the author's writing process. They gather information from a variety of sources like books, dissertations, and online resources.
  3. The author follows a structured approach starting from research, reading, and thinking, then moves on to compressing and structuring content, before finally drafting, editing, and posting their work.

On Alpha School

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2912 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25
🚌 Education School Systems Learning methods Child development Motivation Teaching Strategies
  1. Alpha School uses a unique teaching method that combines effective techniques like spaced repetition and immediate feedback. This helps students learn better and faster compared to traditional education.
  2. The school has a rewards system called AlphaBucks that incentivizes students to complete their lessons. This gamification makes learning feel more fun and engaging for kids.
  3. While Alpha School's methods focus on individualized learning, they may not suit every student. It's important to consider each child's needs and how they learn best.

Can You Really Learn the Humanities in 52 Weeks?

The Honest Broker • 7480 implied HN points • 02 Jan 25
🚌 Education Humanities Literature Arts Culture Learning
  1. You can learn the humanities in a year by following a structured plan with about 250 pages of reading each week. This makes it manageable and not overwhelming.
  2. The course covers a wide range of topics, including literature, art, and music, allowing you to explore human culture broadly.
  3. It's flexible; you can do it at your own pace and even join a reading group if you want to learn with others.

How to pass any first-round interview (even in a terrible talent market)

Lenny's Newsletter • 5228 implied HN points • 04 Jul 23
🚌 Education Interview Preparation Career development Professional Skills Job Searching Personal Growth
  1. First-round interviews are designed to filter out candidates who may not be a good fit for the role.
  2. Prepare for interviews by organizing your career story, walking down memory lane, and learning behavioral frameworks.
  3. Ask high-quality questions at the end of the interview to showcase your interest and stand out as a candidate.

✨🧠 Teaching students to think, not just scroll, in the Age of AI

Faster, Please! • 639 implied HN points • 02 Dec 25
🚌 Education Teaching Methods Student Engagement Curriculum Development
  1. AI can help personalize learning for each student, making education more effective. It aims to provide a tailored experience that meets individual needs and sparks curiosity.
  2. Instead of just giving answers, AI can help students build real thinking skills. This approach encourages deeper understanding and critical thinking.
  3. Schools need to adapt to new technologies like AI to avoid past mistakes made during the smartphone era. It’s important to teach students how to think critically in this new digital age.

Abigail Shrier: Stop Asking Kids If They’re Depressed

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2128 implied HN points • 11 Aug 25
🚌 Education Mental health Child development Public Policy Psychology Wellness
  1. Asking kids repeatedly if they're feeling depressed could make them think they are. Children are very impressionable and might come to believe they have a mental illness just from being asked.
  2. Illinois has become the first state to require mental health screenings for kids in public schools. Some people worry that this could lead to unnecessary diagnoses for children who are actually doing okay.
  3. Many young people without serious mental health issues end up using therapy and medication for years. This can make them feel dependent and may even lead to more problems instead of helping them.

When to Graduate from College?

In My Tribe • 303 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher Ed Curriculum Workforce EdTech
  1. AI may reduce the market value of formal credentials and shift hiring toward demonstrable skills, so the traditional diploma and a May graduation feel less climactic.
  2. Graduation should be flexible and based on readiness to work rather than a fixed number of credits; students might graduate when they start a job, join government, or launch a business.
  3. Colleges need to connect students with employers and adapt courses from day one, using a network-based model that emphasizes practical skills and connections over credentials.

The Night a Shooter Came to My Campus

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 472 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher education Campus safety Student life
  1. A shooter came to a college campus and two classmates were killed.
  2. Students were barricaded in dorms during a lockdown, leaving survivors traumatized and struggling to find words.
  3. The day began as a normal Saturday with a packed campus Chabad lunch and final exams underway, showing how quickly ordinary life was shattered.

What works of the humanities should undergraduates read?

The Common Reader • 2587 implied HN points • 27 Jun 25
🚌 Education Literature Philosophy Arts Humanities Cultural Studies
  1. Undergraduates should read a broader range of humanities works, not just traditional literature like plays and novels. This can include philosophical texts and historical writings too.
  2. There's a belief that knowing about different important thinkers, like Plato and Shakespeare, can enrich our understanding of both literature and philosophy. They shouldn't be seen as separate subjects.
  3. The idea is to keep the humanities relevant in education by encouraging a diverse syllabus, allowing students to explore many types of important texts together.

Two Months into an MBA

From the Desk • 27 implied HN points • 28 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Adult Learning Career development Student life Work Life
  1. Returning to school as an adult can feel out of place at first, but it often brings renewed focus, confidence, and enjoyment in the classroom.
  2. Early classes in accounting and finance are practical and sometimes frustrating—accounting feels more exacting, while finance ties to broader concepts. AI can be a powerful study aid to clarify ideas quickly, but it mustn't replace your own thinking.
  3. Strong family and partner support, including financial sacrifice, makes part-time MBA study possible, and the program helps achieve concrete goals like credentials, practical business skills, a local professional network, and better chances for management or teaching.

Take The 2025 ACX Survey

Astral Codex Ten • 7157 implied HN points • 20 Dec 24
🚌 Education Surveys Psychology Research Findings Incentives
  1. There's a reader survey available that helps understand who reads the blog and explore psychological findings. It's like a fun way to learn more about people's interests.
  2. Taking the survey will take around 20 to 30 minutes, and participants have a chance to win a free one-year subscription. It's a nice incentive to get more people involved.
  3. The survey closes on January 5, so it's important to fill it out before then to make your voice heard.

The BIG GUIDE to teaching LITTLE PEOPLE how to sound out words

The Intrinsic Perspective • 7162 implied HN points • 05 Dec 24
🚌 Education Teaching Parenting Literacy Child development Learning methods
  1. Teaching kids to read can be done much faster at home than in traditional schools. A few minutes of one-on-one tutoring each day can help them start reading within a year.
  2. Many current reading methods are too complicated for young kids. It’s better to make learning fun and game-like instead of following strict rules and lessons.
  3. The process of teaching reading should begin with simple sounds and slowly progress to full sentences, focusing on what interests the child. This makes reading enjoyable and engaging.

Intelligence and Social Mobility

Cremieux Recueil • 767 implied HN points • 11 Nov 25
🚌 Education Social Mobility Intelligence Meritocracy Cognition
  1. Smart kids from poor families often do better than their parents, while less bright kids from rich families may struggle. This shows how intelligence and motivation can really change a person's social standing.
  2. A person's success and where they end up in life is often linked to their abilities and skills, rather than just where they started. Even within families, the smarter siblings tend to rise higher than their less gifted brothers and sisters.
  3. In many societies, being talented and hard-working truly pays off. While there are still some barriers to success, generally, meritocracy helps people improve their social class if they have the right skills.

We Must be Doing Something Right

Unsafe Science • 119 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Research Methods Academic Publishing Peer Review AI Tools
  1. AI can be used to spot propaganda disguised as academic scholarship, doing in minutes what can take humans days and making large-scale checks possible.
  2. Some academic work is ideologically driven and can selectively cite or spin evidence, so claims (like widespread hiring bias) sometimes don’t match the actual data.
  3. Exposing propaganda often triggers hostile reactions from its defenders, which can signal the exposure is hitting a nerve, and automating the work with AI would make such critique faster and broader.

This week in the science of learning, August 18, 2024

The Bell Ringer • 139 implied HN points • 18 Aug 24
🚌 Education Learning Science AI Impact Math education
  1. There is a new online math platform that focuses on how kids feel about math rather than just their performance on tasks. Teachers have noticed that this approach makes kids want to participate and help each other more.
  2. A report warns that generative AI in schools may not be improving student outcomes. Some experts are concerned that it could automate thinking, which isn't what we want for student learning.
  3. Many high school students struggle with reading, and secondary teachers often lack the training to help them. There's a push to change this, but it's unclear if integrating reading lessons will take away from important content learning.

Pre-Class Assignment for Tuesday: 2026-01-27 :: Econ 196 :: Productivity & Technology

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 69 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher education Economic History Productivity Technology Demography Measurement
  1. The demographic transition radically changed population trajectories: a small change in long-run growth rates produces huge differences in population over centuries, so modern population levels are far higher than they would have been under the old growth regime.
  2. Using capability-specific measures—like photons or lumen-hours for lighting—shows that technological improvements have raised practical living standards far more than conventional real-output or real-wage measures imply.
  3. Measuring prosperity requires both these capability-based metrics and attention to distribution, environment, and nonmarket welfare, and hands-on quantitative exercises (e.g., Python arithmetic) are a powerful way to teach what technology and growth actually mean.

Activists Who Compare Humans To Sex-Changing Fish Don’t Go Far Enough

Reality's Last Stand • 2044 implied HN points • 10 Feb 24
🚌 Education Biology Gender Studies Social Issues
  1. Gender activists making comparisons between humans and sex-changing fish lack intellectual seriousness
  2. The argument suggesting that humans can change sex like fish has been mainstreamed by popular science outlets
  3. Challenging activists to follow the logic of their comparisons can lead to interesting discussions