I have found over the years that I am a learner, and sometimes a teacher. I have strong views about challenges of the educational process and this section contains an eclectic set of comments on various topics in the field of education.

Click on each of these ‘articles’ to get detailed information about each topic.

Self-Creation

For over 20 years, Glenn Detrick taught a course built on the ancient idea “Know Thyself,” urging students to move beyond self-discovery toward intentional self-creation. Drawing on Viktor Frankl’s emphasis on perspective and choice, he argues that while circumstances influence us, we ultimately choose our attitudes and direction. By defining values, setting goals, and acting with responsibility and focus, individuals can deliberately shape who they become and live meaningful, purposeful lives.

Life Reflection

In his 2015 reflection, Glenn shares how fatherhood gave his life meaning, inspired by Viktor Frankl’s teachings on choosing one’s attitude. After losing his daughter Chelsea to cancer, he transformed grief into purpose by creating scholarships and educational centers in her memory across the U.S., Burkina Faso, and Nepal. Drawing on lessons from Frankl, Daniel Goleman, and Stephen R. Covey, he emphasizes resilience, empowerment, and finding meaning through service.

Positive Psychology

Psychology 367, Seminar in Positive Psychology, taught by Randy Larsen and Glenn Detrick, emphasizes discussion, reflection, and experiential learning. Students explore themes like meaning, happiness, emotional intelligence, relationships, and flow through weekly readings, journals, and applied exercises. A major research paper and take-home final encourage deeper analysis and personal insight. The course integrates scholarship with self-development, aiming to cultivate self-awareness, resilience, purpose, and practical tools for living a meaningful life.

Self-Discovery/LifeSkills

GST 337, created by Glenn Detrick at Elon University, was an intensive three-week course focused on self-discovery and life skills. Through discussion, journals, feedback, presentations, and creative projects, students explored meaning, perspective, choice, emotional intelligence, and personal growth. Inspired by works like Man’s Search for Meaning, the course emphasized responsibility, response-ability, and proactive living. Students reported significant growth in self-awareness, confidence, and practical interpersonal skills.

Taking a Family Trip

This guide from the Chelsea Detrick Experiential Learning Center at Webster Groves High School helps parents turn family travel into meaningful learning. It emphasizes thoughtful destination planning, setting expectations, journaling, asking reflective questions, balancing structure with spontaneity, and post-trip debriefing. International travel is highlighted as especially transformative. By encouraging responsibility, reflection, and cultural awareness, parents can use travel to foster self-discovery, perspective, confidence, and lifelong personal growth in their children.

Effective Teaching — Student Perceptions

A high school focus group identified key traits of effective and ineffective teaching. Excellent teachers show energy, enthusiasm, fairness, empathy, organization, creativity, and respect for students. They give meaningful assignments, provide timely feedback, use varied methods, embrace technology, and maintain a positive attitude with humor. Ineffective teachers are negative, boring, disorganized, inflexible, and fail to engage or support students. Overall, students value teachers who care, communicate clearly, inspire interest, and create an engaging, respectful learning environment.

Washington University Syllabus

U87-435 at Washington University in St. Louis, taught by Glenn Detrick, is a structured independent study focused on personal and organizational introspection. Students set growth objectives, keep reflective journals, complete book reviews of Man’s Search for Meaning, Emotional Intelligence, and The 7 Habits, and perform kindness and feedback exercises. Through reflection, affirmations, and culture analysis, the course promotes self-awareness, accountability, resilience, and purposeful personal development.

Course Themes

In U87–435, Glenn Detrick highlights core life principles centered on choice, perspective, and personal accountability. Drawing on Viktor Frankl, the course emphasizes choosing a positive attitude, practicing empathy and emotional intelligence, and letting go of negativity. Students are urged to be proactive, persistent, reflective, and purpose-driven. True empowerment comes from recognizing response-ability: you create yourself through intentional action, not circumstance, making time for growth and meaningful living.

Teacher Unions

Glenn Detrick criticizes teachers’ unions for prioritizing equal treatment over performance-based fairness. Using cartoons to illustrate his point, he argues that tenure and uniform pay structures protect ineffective teachers while failing to reward excellence. He contends that salaries based solely on education and years of service ignore teaching quality and outcomes. Detrick proposes shifting from treating all teachers “the same” to treating them “fairly,” with differentiated rewards for strong performance to improve education and retain outstanding educators.

Don’t Send Your Kid to Occidental College

Glenn Detrick contrasts objectives and outcomes, arguing education should prioritize learning over merely earning a degree. Drawing on his higher education experience, he criticizes Occidental College for administrative indifference, poor communication, course access problems, and rigid policies that undermined his daughter’s intellectual interests. He contends the college focuses on degree completion rather than meaningful learning, leaving motivated students frustrated and disengaged despite high tuition costs.

An Interview with Russell L. Ackoff

In this 2002 interview in Academy of Management Learning & Education, Russell Ackoff argues that teaching often obstructs real learning. He criticizes tenure, subsidies, exams, case methods, and discipline-based curricula, claiming universities prioritize faculty comfort over student development. Ackoff advocates experiential, apprenticeship-based learning, systems thinking, and designing organizations rather than analyzing isolated subjects. He urges transformation not reform of management education by eliminating rigid structures and focusing on teaching students how to learn, think creatively, and solve real-world “messes.”