Protect the Thinking: Introducing the TRACE™ Framework

TRACE™: A Human-Centered Framework for AI-Supported Thinking and Learning AI Supports. Humans Lead. There is a familiar and recurring educational optical illusion appearing in classrooms everywhere. A student submits an assignment that looks terrific. The grammar is polished, the vocabulary is elevated, the organization is nearly flawless, and the presentation appears ready for a conference … Continue reading Protect the Thinking: Introducing the TRACE™ Framework →

Preventing Jonathan Haidt from Writing “The Artificial Generation.”

Five years from now, the morning bell still rings in American schools, but it no longer means what it once did. It does not summon students into learning so much as into access, where students login, sync, prompt, generate, revise and submit. The rituals of school remain cosmetically intact. Backpacks still thud against desks. Teachers … Continue reading Preventing Jonathan Haidt from Writing “The Artificial Generation.” →

Come with Me if You Want to Lead: Human-First, Future-Ready, and Fully Present.

Come with me if you want to teleprompt, speculate, conversate, translate and navigate, into the future.  It’s been a month since I started wearing, living, and working with the Even Realities G2 smart glasses and companion ring, and the experience has been nothing short of otherworldly. The closest comparison I can make is that unmistakable, … Continue reading Come with Me if You Want to Lead: Human-First, Future-Ready, and Fully Present. →

The Digital DMV for the Information Highway

A serious national plan and blueprint for age certification, developmental guardrails, and AI that strengthens (not short-circuits) learning In my last article, The United States of Algorithmia - A Sovereign Nation, with an Unsecured Network, I raised the alarm! We’re a nation obsessed with physical borders while leaving the digital ones wide open, and our … Continue reading The Digital DMV for the Information Highway →

The United States of Algorithmia – A Sovereign Nation, with an Unsecured Network

Childhood Is Not an Open Border Policy By Mark Erlenwein Childhood Is Not an Open Border Policy There is something deeply American about our obsession with borders. We debate them endlessly.We campaign on them.We fund them.We argue about who crosses them. But while we fight over geography, we have quietly surrendered the only border that … Continue reading The United States of Algorithmia – A Sovereign Nation, with an Unsecured Network →

The Future of Work – With 22nd Century Vision

The Future of Work: With 22nd Century Vision - I’ve spent years dabbling in smart glasses and even own the Apple Vision Pro for the past two years, though it never quite found a daily professional niche for me. I’ve tried plenty of what’s already out there in terms of Smart Glasses, always curious, always … Continue reading The Future of Work – With 22nd Century Vision →

Mentor Moments: Thank you, Dr. Larry Kopelman! 

Life Lessons Through Treating the Person, Not the Injury There are mentors who teach you what to do, and then there are mentors who quietly show you how to be. Long before I ever stood in front of a faculty, addressed a national audience, or was entrusted with leading Staten Island Technical High School, I … Continue reading Mentor Moments: Thank you, Dr. Larry Kopelman!  →

Portrait of a Graduate, Portrait of a Crisis: What Education Must Fix Before the Future Arrives

College and or Career Readiness in the Age of AI in 2025 - The Coming Workforce Winter and What Education Must Do Before the Job Market Freezes by Mark Erlenwein, Principal - Staten Island Technical High School I’ve been in public education long enough to have seen pendulum swings, policy cycles, silver bullets, and reforms … Continue reading Portrait of a Graduate, Portrait of a Crisis: What Education Must Fix Before the Future Arrives →

Suplexes, Scantrons, and School Spirit: How Wrestling Raised a Principal

by Mark Erlenwein (Special thanks to Dr. Lavie Margolin and John ‘Poz’ Pozarowski for the fun interview on Episode 261 of “The Business of the Business” podcast, which inspired writing this article.)   If you had told four-year-old me, perched on my father’s shoulders outside Madison Square Garden, waiting to rub WWF champion, Bob Backlund’s crew-cut … Continue reading Suplexes, Scantrons, and School Spirit: How Wrestling Raised a Principal →