As a basketball coach and a teacher, I endeavour to focus on the big picture. Did the team win? Did individual players improve? Did students achieve the overall expectations for the course? When all is said and done, did we meet our mastery and performance oriented goals? Throughout our studies, we create theories to make things easier. Why continually reinvent the wheel when there is a perfectly good drill to develop the skills required or a practical classroom routine to facilitate student learning? But we should be mindful not to become dogmatic. Suboptimal scenarios include Master Practice Plans which eliminate …
Prequel to the Big Short
Before he wrote The Big Short and Moneyball, before Sandra Bulloch saw The Blind Side, Michael Lewis published Liar’s Poker, a sometimes cynical, mostly thankful, and somewhat prescient account of his three years at Salomon Brothers. Having read Lewis’ book about the recent financial meltdown, I could not help but wonder “doesn’t anyone learn from experience?” as I saw eerie similarities in a book written two decades earlier. Based on this book, traders at Salomon Brothers seemed supercilious, short-sighted, and superficial. They may have made a great deal of money in the past but very little time was devoted to …