Beyond her advocacy efforts, Lynne Henwood’s body of work includes designing a teaching unit, based on the Autonomous Learner Model, empowering fifth grade students to utilize 21st century skills such as choice, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and technology. She was honored in 2018 as Teacher of the Year for the New Jersey Association of Gifted Children, where she now serves as president.

“We can absolutely teach the majority of children—something like 96% or 97%—to read with the right instruction. But we can’t end the sentence there. It’s really ‘with the right instruction for them,’” says Rachael Gabriel, associate professor of literacy education.

James Kaufman said studies do suggest some kind of link between mental illness and “genius-level” creativity. He said that is balanced by many studies that show there is no cause and effect relationship: “Creativity doesn’t lead to mental illness, and mental illness doesn’t lead to creativity,” he said.

But he worries that perception may too often be accepted as fact, which might lead someone to put off treatment, or stop taking medication, for example, out of the mistaken belief that it could stifle creativity.

As social scientists who study coaching and leadership in sport, we’re starting to see a double standard at play – one that holds female coaches to a different standard than their male counterparts.

“We really need to think systematically about how to permit charter schools to exist in a way that won’t deleteriously impact school districts,” Preston Green says. “So understand that when I’m calling for a moratorium, I’m not calling for a backdoor closure but, rather, really thinking deliberately about how they can exist and be situated in a way that their inefficiencies are lessened.”