OCTOBER 29, 2024 – After watching/listening to vice president’s uplifting campaign speech this evening, I was schooled by our older son, who also heard Harris’s rallying cry. Cory himself is not voting for Trump, but he understands why a lot of men—regardless of race—are Trump supporters. I realized that if I wanted to understand better, …
THE BIG RED BALL AND THE SMALL BLUE MARBLE
MAY 28, 2024 – What delights Beth (a former teacher) and me (a former student, who by and large enjoyed school) is that our second-grade granddaughter likes school so much, one of her favorite after-school activities is . . . playing school. Half the fun for all of us is the set-up. Emulating what she …
THE STATE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION: ANOTHER BREAK IN THE ACTION
APRIL 28, 2024 – It being a Sunday morning, I poured myself a cup of Java, repaired to the reading room, leaned back in my easy(-going) chair, put on some very dead white guy music, and last but best . . . pulled up the Sunday edition of The Times on my laptop screen. Ah-h-h! …
JOIN UP: “IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL”
DECEMBER 8, 2023 – After school yesterday, Beth picked up Illiana from school and ferried her back to our house to play for a while before swimming class at 5:00. I was disappointed I couldn’t join in fun around the house, but I was in the middle of a three-hour Zoom conference. With my microphone …
KNOWLEDGE AND KNOW-HOW
APRIL 19, 2023 – I remember the moment. It occurred as I left Mr. Trepte’s classroom at the end of a session in which he’d handed back exam papers. I’d studied hard for the math test, since it counted significantly toward the final grade, and my efforts were handsomely rewarded. Feeling good about how this …
BACK IN CLASS
JANUARY 23, 2023 – I have a confession to make. For many years I contributed nothing to my alma mater’s alumni fund. I’d soured on the whole idea in the course of paying major bucks through both nostrils for our younger son’s college education. How could increases in the all-in cost consistently far outstrip the …
IMPRESSIONS
JANUARY 14, 2023 – Memory: I’m fascinated by the details it holds amidst a vast ocean of time, images, encounters and impressions. Take for example, the exact words of Mr. Cavanaugh in social studies class my freshman year of high school: “If you analyze people, you lose them.” More details: He wore a tweed jacket …
CELEBRATING MY EDUCATION GAP
JANUARY 10, 2023 – The more I “mature,” the wider my education gap grows and the deeper a realization sinks in: there’s little I can do to mitigate the trend. It’s in our nature—by evolutionary necessity and practical convenience—to assume we know everything about one thing or rather, about a lot of things. Similar to …
SUPREMELY INTOLERABLE
NOVEMBER 1, 2022 – Yesterday the Supremes heard oral arguments in two affirmative action cases. The high court will likely stick a pitchfork in the long-standing law of the land—that race diversity goals may justify consideration of race in admissions to higher education. This morning I thought about these cases as I reviewed an essay …
HIGHER THINKING
DECEMBER 5, 2021 – If you try you can remember our ignoble exit from Afghanistan. If you try harder, you can remember our failure in Vietnam. Between those fiascos? The fight in Iraq—our effort at “nation-building” and . . . the rise of ISIS. Yesterday, I flipped through the latest issue of my college alumni …
THE KRAZY KASE OF AMERIKAN DEMOKRACY IN KOMIC BOOK KOURT
NOVEMBER 17, 2021 – I’d wanted to write something cool (but heartwarming), when Bam!—I read about the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois kid who grabbed his assault rifle and ammo and drove to Kenosha, Wisconsin to kill a couple of BLM protesters . . . in self-defense. After closing arguments in a courtroom presided …
PERSPECTIVE
JUNE 15, 2021 – In one of my dreamworlds, I’m an “as-long-as-I-want-to-be-professor-at-large” at some small, leafy, liberal arts college in a quiet New England town. I design my courses, decide my class times, and select my students. I’m assigned a small office on the third floor of a creaky, original academic building—a room lined with …
TIME TO RE-THINK
AUGUST 25, 2020 – By now we’ve all heard about The Contagion on college campuses. I’d hate to be among administrators right now. No matter what they do, they’ll be yelled at, maybe worse, when this is over. Atop news about Covid outbreaks and quarantines on campuses, we’re told about frat parties, beer bashes, and …