Category: Uncategorized
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Review of "The Hunger Games"–book and movie
I believe that this is a dangerous book, an allegory of free-market capitalism’s corruption of youth’s innocence, portraying the way that market forces push young people into mercenary survivors who will do whatever is required to survive. The correlation between this televised Battle Royale and high-stakes testing, with all its Darwinian aspects, was not lost on me. That Suzanne Collins’ story has…
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Review of "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
Are you looking for a book that provides you with a whole bunch of genres at once–sort of a 1990s Moby Dick, only with mythology, fantasy, theology, murder mystery, and a USA travelogue? Here is an astonishing book that does all that and leaves you thinking about its questions for days after. I have read…
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Review of "A Fine Balance" by Rohintin Mistry
Here is a book that could be classified under the heading “humanizing novels.” It takes an exotic, unknown subject for Americans–India during the time of its “Emergency” in 1975-76–and through incisive, third-person narrative, fully realizes the human experience of people living in Mumbai during that agonizing time. Through the experiences of four characters–the middle-class widow…
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Another great comment under a WashPo Answer Sheet article
The most intriguing writing on the Internet often appears in the response to other writing, and this article by Mark Naison on Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet explained why Americans are complacent to or part of the chorus vociferating teachers. It was interesting and echoed ruminations had here back in August 2011. Naison imagines this dialog…
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The National Teacher Mood: poor
And so it’s not just me and my peers feeling put-upon and less respect than ever. According to the well-publicized Met Life study of teacher morale in the USA, the majority of my peers feel what I have been feeling and venting in these blog posts for the past few years, namely: Teachers are less…
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In the unlikely event that you have missed this viral pro-teacher statement
I wanted to publish it here. I don’t know where it originates. I received it from a teacher in Kansas, who received it from somewhere else. I wanted to memorialize it because in the midst of contract negotiations–something that only business or math teachers must feel foreign, if not icky–it’s good to shine a light…
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Examining the US Dept. of Ed, Part 2
A few days ago I blogged about why it behooves a public school teacher or a US citizen to get some clarity on why the US Dept. of Education exists anymore. And just yesterday, Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum claimed that he saw the DofEd as “anachronistic,” by which I think he meant “out of its…
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Finnish Schools: Why can't we do some of this here?
I especially like the way there is such a student-centered approach–with one teacher tending to a group of youngsters for multiple years, a relaxed environment, and an investment in the teacher as a professional. Yes, the teachers are all highly-vetted, with serious masters degrees, and there is a more homogenous and less poverty-plagued society to…
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Hey, Dept. of Education–Why do you exist?
If nothing else, the DoEd had a good graphic designer. One of my intelligent friends, always keen political observer, recently asked me a school-related question for which I had no immediate answer: Why do we have a federal Department of Education, when there is absolutely no mention of it in our constitution? After all, except…
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The technology of theft
Had we but world enough, and time,this coyness, lady, were no crime. -Andrew Marvell Had I but wealth enough, and time, I would make many more wealthy with my well-timed stock picks. But as an English teacher, many students’ writing and reading skills would suffer if I diverted even a minute from the stacks of…
The Wikiness 