United States
wotz da big deal cuz u kno wot i mean
March 4 is National Grammar Day in the United States….
Something Wrong
Today, I did something wrong. I ate a perfect pear in January….
Are There Alternatives to the College Experience?
Should everyone be expected go to college right out of high school? What else could kids who aren’t hard-wired to continue with formal education do rather than menial labor? Or do you believe that college is the only way to a better life?…
I Could Not Celebrate: So Kill Me
Sunday was YomHashoah, a day commemorating the six million Jews (and others) who were murdered in the Holocaust. I know Osama bin Laden wasn’t a leader who shared a western worldview, but he had his followers. Mostly, I’m uncomfortable with all this celebration over another person’s murder. Aren’t we taught not to be joyful when blood is shed?…
Guest Post by Clay Morgan: Lessons From a Pop Teacher & a Few Zombies
Just the other day I was giving a lecture on Europe after World War II. Many of the students were fading and staring blankly in my general direction. I was about to explain one of the most important parts of the entire course and needed them alert and free of mental paralysis.
Good thing I know so much about zombies….
Lessons on Slowing Down
People often ask me, as a person who has spent nearly twenty years in the classroom, what I think about AP classes. Should their child take this AP or that AP? And they are often surprised by my my response that nobody gives a shit about AP classes. Really….
The Giver: Thirteen Years Later
It’s happening. My son is currently reading the first piece of literature that I ever taught. He is reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the story of a young boy named Jonas living in a highly controlled community some time in the future. The novel fits into a larger genre of cautionary tales called “dystopian literature.” If a utopia is a society in which everything is perfect, a dystopia is the opposite: everything has gone wrong. But my son doesn’t get this. Yet….
Post Vay-Cay Gratitude
Having just returned from a fabulous, week-long Tauck-Bridges Tour that started in Phoenix, Arizona, moved through many of our National Parks and ended in Las Vegas, I am finding re-entry into everyday life a little rough as we were so very pampered. Where is my breakfast menu? You mean I have to start cooking again? Sigh. But now that the six loads of laundry are behind me, and I have a fully stocked refrigerator, I would like to take a moment to express a little gratitude because it is easy to get sucked back into the daily grind and forget how wonderful it was just 24 hours ago. …