When he was eight he wanted to grow up to be a hunter. His dad was a duck hunter and had taken him out to the duck marsh on opening day. His dad was a fine wing shot, but he was more impressed with the duck calls. His dad did the loud two-quack call designed [...]

Conservatives and liberals have opposite moral worldviews structured by metaphor around two profoundly different models of the ideal family, a strict father family for conservatives and a nurturant parent family for liberals. In the ideal strict father family, the world is seen as a dangerous place and the father functions as protector from “others” and [...]

Teaching is the most difficult profession of them all,” educator Lee Shulman recently told a group of teachers and psychologists. The only time a physician comes close to doing what a teacher does is when the doctor faces an emergency room of multiple patients with multiple conditions, all of whom need immediate attention. That’s what [...]

Who is to say that horse whisperers aren’t as big a deal as kindergarten teachers? Like making a difference. I have a hunch that that’s what I want for my legacy; “He made a difference.” I imagine some nice gentleman saying, “he did so and so and that made a difference.” It wouldn’t have been [...]

“I have leprosy, Hansen’s disease. I am a leper.” She said and moved herself and all of her stuff off to a shack at the end of this road. “Nonsense” we said, though we understood that she might want to be alone for a while after the accident.
Nonsense we would say when we visited in [...]

When I was young Christmas was exciting and filled with mysteries. Wrapped boxes would be placed on “my pile;” “Merry Christmas George from Granma.” The packages accumulated for a few days before the openings on Christmas day. A curious child will wonder what Granma has purchased, put into this box, and wrapped so carefully and [...]

There is what we describe as the “core” conceptualization of the classroom: Teachers teach from the front of the room, deciding what is to be learned, in what manner, and under what conditions. The primary means of grouping for instruction is the entire class. The major daily classroom activities are the teacher telling, explaining and [...]

I am a stooper, my dad was too; ya know what that is? I’ll tell ya. People love to bet at the horse races. A lot of them know what they are doing and a lot just don’t understand how the system works. I mean the parimutuel system that the tracks use. Ya make a [...]

We go over to the cabin at Rocky Fork for overnights, never more than one night at a time. We go home the next morning, apparently valuing the day at home more than a day at the cabin, or even a day at the cabin plus another night there. Yeah, the cabin is an overnight [...]

J.B. Schramm and E. Kinney Zalesne are CEO and former CEO of the nonprofit College Summit. In an article titled “High School’s Last Test,”in either NYT or WSJ they wrote, “Today, the difference in earning power between a high school graduate and someone who’s finished eighth grade has shrunk to nil.” For a lot of [...]

I couldn’t find my shoe today, and no one’s been by to visit to tell me, “James, your right slipper is underneath the sleeping bag that needs to be washed before the hike.” Believe me when I say that I’ve looked all over for the damn thing. I found a few extra chairs, my down [...]

He sits by the window with the shades drawn; light enough for writing, not too bright for his sensitive eyes. He writes every waking hour, now down to eight per day. The Meals on Wheels lady comes at midday; she reads out loud what he has written since the last meal. The medical technician comes [...]

My friend Bruce Thomas answered my Debbie Meiers blog with the information that Superintendent in Manchester New Hampshire, Louis P. Benezet, banned all formal math instruction in his schools until seventh grade. He felt that a) time spent on math before that age detracted from time needed to develop language and reason and that b) [...]