Art of Learning

https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanhaidt/p/haidt-nyu-commencement-address?r=2b2r2e&utm_medium=ios

Treasure Your Attention Jonathan Haidt's advice to the NYU Class of 2026 on how to flourish in a world that raises many obstacles to human flourishing.

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh.” - Pema Chodron

Opinion | This Is Why I Find Pema Chödrön So Essential (Gift Article) The 89-year-old Buddhist nun teaches the power of agreeing with your anxiety, instead of trying to run from it.

Retreating oneself to a place that sustains concentration and allows for reflective and contemplative thought is one of the most primal and transcendental activities of human experience.

“In order to stave off disaster, we need a full revolution in defense of thinking, launched against the digital forces seeking to degrade it."

Opinion | There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate (Gift Article) Just as we changed our thinking around physical fitness, we need to change our attitude toward cognitive fitness.

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” - J. Culkin

Opinion | I Saw Something New in San Francisco (Gift Article) Marshall McLuhan was right about Claude, too.

Regardless of or , the goal is .

“You see nature and then you try to emulate it.” Alexander

"Big Fat Banana" (1969) at , a part of the exhibit "Alexander Calder: Dissonant Harmony." Looking forward to seeing the exhibit in May.

Calder's work embodies in kinetic motion by embracing the element of wind to create ever-changing, surreal abstractions in his art.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/opinion/neuroscience-thinking-human.html?unlocked_article_code=1.E1A.KXQl.S6KlP9HUN3UI&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Opinion | This Is How Your Mind Works (Gift Article) Our thoughts are an ever-changing swirl of fears, feelings, desires, impulses, memories and body sensations that interact to form a single mind.

Happy New Year from the Art of Learning!

“An A.I.-resistant English course has three main elements: pen-and-paper and oral testing; teaching the process of writing rather than just assigning papers; and greater emphasis on what happens in the classroom.”

The third element- what happens in class - is by far the most human-centric. I’m a big fan of devoting class time for peer reviews and other student-led activities emphasizing constructive feedback, collaborative brainstorming, and engaging rhetorical debate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/magazine/ai-higher-education-students-teachers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7k8.poU7.63CLAVy57GxK&smid=nytcore-ios-sharellrg

I’m a Professor. A.I. Has Changed My Classroom, but Not for the Worse. (Gift Article) My students’ easy access to chatbots forced me to make humanities instruction even more human.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16dBRtE5bq/

Here’s 100 years of creativity advice in 30 seconds.