What if schools could cultivate the genius of every child instead of narrowing it? In Imagination: A Manifesto, Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin argues that imagination is not simply creative play but a contested terrain that shapes systems of justice or oppression. If mass incarceration, redlining, and eugenics all began in someone’s imagination, then alternative futures must begin there, as well. One powerful example Benjamin cites comes from a NASA study on divergent thinking: 98% of five-year-olds scored at the “genius” level for creativity, but by adulthood, that number dropped to just 2%. Rather than nurturing imagination, schooling often standardizes it away. In contrast, Finland delays formal reading, writing, and mathematics until around age seven, focusing instead on play. Teachers observe and document children’s play because they recognize its role in cultivating collaboration, communication, and care. For independent and international schools, the takeaway is crucial. Classrooms can serve as incubators of radical imagination (an interpretive framing), reclaiming divergent thinking as a practice of liberation. Benjamin’s call invites educators to resist inherited hierarchies and behavioral norms that especially target Black children and to envision schools where creativity, equity, and justice are cultivated as intentionally as literacy and numeracy. 

Although the size of Kirschner, Hendrick, and Heal’s narrow volume (the main text of the book is under 90 pages) might cause readers to underestimate it, Instructional Illusions packs a mighty punch. Built around 11 classroom “illusions,” the authors probe the perplexing, persistent, and pernicious gaps between what teachers think is happening and what students actually learn. The illusions framework might read as kitschy, but it helps demystify the process of learning, since, like illusions, “so much of what happens when we learn is concealed from view.” Grounding their arguments in the most up-to-date “science of learning” research and insights, the authors take aim at many of the pieties and practices of classroom teachers, not with the goal of shaming them but instead from a deep commitment to creating the best possible conditions for students to learn how to learn. Some of the dismantled illusions, like the early chapter on “engagement” and another on “performance,” won’t shock readers familiar with contemporary thinking on learning and attention. Others, however, like the authors’ analysis of “expertise” and another on “innovation,” will likely provoke and will most certainly inspire more reflective practice and appropriate skepticism about flashy buzzwords. Ultimately, Kirschner, Hendrick, and Heal offer a model of teaching in which teachers are deeply attentive to their students, learning from and with them as they work to collaboratively create the conditions for learning, growth, and skill development. Instructional Illusions, therefore, is an incredibly rich primer on effective teaching.

At a time when AI-generated writing and algorithmic echo chambers threaten genuine exchange, Zadie Smith's reflection on essay writing reminds us what writing can be. Beyond five paragraphs or thesis statements, essaying is what Smith calls "a complex performance." Smith begins her essay as many of us begin a writing lesson: with a teacher's formula. A six-arrowed rectangle provided her with direction and confidence, to which she eventually added intellectual engagement. She describes the messy, deeply human process of drafting something, then rereading and realizing "I don't actually think any of that." After frowns and deletions, she tries again, "this time allowing myself to think honestly, aloud, a process that will involve the various strands of my thought arguing with one another." The rectangular formula may have offered her structure, but this process of letting different ideas argue with one another on the page, of discovering her own actual beliefs, is the substance. Smith's vision extends beyond individual discovery to democratic practice. She writes for what she describes as "an explosion of alterity: people with their own unique histories, traumas, memories, hopes, fears," not expecting readers to relate to her personally, but to be "in relation." Essay writing becomes a process through which she can engage complexity without retreating to false simplicity. As she says, "Nothing concerning human life is simple. Not aesthetics, not politics, not gender, not race, not history, not memory, not love." As educators grappling with what it means to teach about thinking, writing, and discourse in this moment in time, this essay seems an essential read to remind us of what it is all for — the journey and the complexity of being human.

Race, identity, curriculum, parental choice, and school board policy come together to describe a dramatic scene unfolding across small and medium-sized cities that can only be described as a war for America’s classrooms. Written by award-winning investigative reporter Mike Hixenbaugh, They Came for the Schools is a deeply reported account of how a school board election in one affluent Texas town became the catalyst for a national movement to redefine public education. The book explores a well-funded campaign that seeks to ban books, rewrite curricula, and impose a Christian nationalist vision on American classrooms. While the focus is on the public school system, Hixenbaugh offers private school educators a crucial look into the powerful forces shaping the educational landscape. He highlights the growing culture war over academic freedom, DEI, curriculum, and the role of schools in society. By tracing the origins of this movement, Hixenbaugh provides a roadmap of the challenges that educators, regardless of their institutional setting, may face in the future. While Hixenbaugh reveals that the long-term strategy of this movement is to undermine public education and promote school privatization, the reporting underscores the need to be vigilant in safeguarding institutional autonomy and mission against external political and ideological pressures.

Pew’s April 2025 report offers a clear, nuanced snapshot of how U.S. teens experience social media and what schools can act on now. Many teens say they spend more time on platforms than they’d like, and the most commonly reported downsides cluster around sleep and staying on task. A meaningful share also connects social use to dips in mood and academic performance, with girls more likely than boys to report negative effects, particularly around sleep and mental health. However, the picture is not one-sided. Most teens also credit social media with helping them feel connected to friends, express creativity, and find acceptance and support. A notable subset turns to these platforms for mental-health information and considers them an important source. For independent school professionals, the takeaway is balance, not blanket bans. Build sleep and attention literacy into advisory and health curricula. Equip parents with language and norms that acknowledge both harms and benefits. Train faculty and deans to recognize gender-skewed experiences and intervene early. Partner counseling teams with student leaders to surface the mental-health content students encounter online. Pew’s research supplies data and language you can use with boards, faculty, and families as you calibrate policy, culture, and communication.

In his follow-up to the popular Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, Jeffrey Selingo, author and cohost of the Future U podcast, continues to give color to the college admissions conversation. In 10 easy-to-digest chapters, he explains why college applicants should not put all or any of their eggs in the elite college basket and instead owe it to themselves to explore schools that not only want them but can also fund their tuition. Selingo makes a compelling case not for rejecting, but for redefining, the contours of the so-called dream school. “We approach the college search as if there is a dream school, a single choice, a perfect match for us. There isn’t,” he points out, noting that well beyond the Ivy League, the little three, and the SEC there are 3900 colleges and universities in the United States including two-year and specialized institutions. Rather than break their hearts over impossible odds or break the proverbial bank trying to pay for a top-tier degree, Selingo counsels high school seniors to look for schools that actually fit their personalities, interests, and how they like and need to learn. In the book’s appendix, Selingo offers a list of 75 of what he calls “The New Dream Schools” – colleges that are both excellent and accessible. Written primarily for parents seeking to support their children through the increasingly stressful college admissions process, Dream School is also useful for college counselors, teachers, and school leaders responsible for shepherding students on their way to higher ed and easing, whenever possible, their journey.

Many readers, at least in North America, will remember Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton. The long-running series was originally developed to combat the "summer slide," not so much "about learning to read, but about loving to read." This was accomplished through trips to locations that highlighted the books' settings, book reviews by children, and Burton’s own charisma. Reading Rainbow, cancelled in 2006 after 23 years and 26 Emmy Awards, is an example of the role public broadcasting can play in supporting children’s interest in reading. The article references a study that Reading Rainbow was named by a higher percentage of teachers than any other program for educational use in 1996-97. Ironically, despite the many accolades, including a Peabody, the original proposal was rejected. In addition to the Smithsonian article, the series is also the subject of a 2022 documentary, Butterfly in the Sky (available, at the time of publication, on Netflix and Prime streaming platforms). While the original show ended almost two decades ago, contemporary themes are raised, including efforts to defund American public broadcasting, censorship, and the competition for young people’s attention, first with television and then with computers. Reading Rainbow is back with new episodes, available on YouTube, and a new host, Mychal The Librarian.