Being the guy who wrote a book called Ultralearning , I get asked a lot of questions about what I think schools should be doing better. Having never taught in a classroom or worked for even a single day in education, it’s a question I’m totally unqualified to answer. It’s a bit like asking a guy to reform an entire health care system because he’s good at lifting weights. But being totally unqualified has never stopped me before, so I’ll try to explain the answer I typically give to this question, which is that I’m skeptical of dramatic proposals to make school considerably more effective or efficient for the average student. To be clear, that’s not because no improvement is possible. We do know some about things that work that are inconsistently applied: phonics should be taught, cognitive load should be managed, skills should be fully taught and practice should be fun and ample. But these answers aren’t the kind that satisfy the people who ask me these questions.…