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Education is perhaps the most vulnerable and intimate experience people can have with each other that is not familial or romantic. It’s so easy for the classroom to be either harmful—consider the destruction of a person’s curiosity and confidence in learning is muddled by shame or helplessness— or transformative when done well—empowering a student to […]
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Education, work, study: these were not simply a means to an end.
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There are no line breaks here because there are no breaks here.
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Abi Daré discusses her debut novel, THE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE.
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How do we transcend generations of trauma and let go of our burdensome past?
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“We need narrative patterns to understand reality.”
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The thing I’ve learned about kids is that you only ever get a glimpse of the grown-up people they’ll become.
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College is a rite of passage for many young people, and it’s also a part of the American Dream for many families. Here is a list of books that tackle those fraught four years.
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The Lost Boys had their moment in the media, but these people, these survivors, not boys at all and not lost now either, are still here, living lives, growing and changing and thinking and reflecting.
...moreWelcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most relevant content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
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He’s the teacher who encourages questions beyond the class assessment, who always gets his students to open the “Curiosity Door.”
...moreThere are those who bemoan schools’ decisions to stop teaching cursive, and those who welcome the decision with keyboard in hand. John Oppenheimer, writing for the New Yorker, talks about writing to his daughters at summer camp using cursive, even though they have some trouble deciphering the script and his body isn’t so fond of handwriting: […]
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It isn’t much of a contest to say that Julie Coyne is the single most inspirational human being I have ever met. And I am here—in Xela—in part because I could use a little inspiration.
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Author Nina Stibbe discusses her new novel Paradise Lodge, our obsession with character likeability, and how she more than flirts with feminism.
...moreGabrielle Emanuel writes for NPR’s Education section on the history of math education. Emanuel explores how basic mathematics were kept from becoming the common knowledge they are today, due to the influence of centuries-old taboos around money and commerce.
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John Reed discusses Snowball’s Chance, his parody of Animal Farm, and the lawsuits, debates, and discoveries that followed the book’s publication.
...moreUnseen, a literary magazine founded by Singaporean university students, wants us to release ourselves from “the pressure-cooker environment of examinations” and all the literature we’re required to read for them. The Unseen creators believe that reading outside of the curriculum encourages literary creativity and exploration, and want to spread the wealth to their peers everywhere.
...moreEverything make sense if you’re an artist. At the Dallas Observer, Caroline North exchanged a few words with current US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, who is kicking off his second term with a book tour and several forthcoming projects, including The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon, a series of coloring books written by and for […]
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Asali Solomon discusses her debut novel, Disgruntled, narrative structure, the mythology of memory and place, and returning to Philadelphia after years away.
...moreAt NPR Education, Byrd Pinkerton looks at the emergence of children’s literacy and literature, starting with 17th century learning primers through to the late 20th century’s complex young adult literature, all of which have helped define the idea of “childhood” through the centuries.
...moreFinland tops the charts for most literate nation, with the United States coming in seventh. A new study looks not just at literacy rates but at literacy behaviors. These behaviors include counting libraries, newspapers, and years of schooling. Ranking nations based on reading assessment only would result in a very different list of top readers.
...moreDonna Drucker writes for Notches on the Dean of Women’s Office at Purdue University. The Dean of Women’s Office was the late 1960s predecessor to the university’s modern-day Dean of Students role. In her piece, Drucker looks at the period-specific complaints and concerns registered by female students, and how the office addressed a wide range […]
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There were “good” families and “bad” families, and even I, an outsider, was quickly apprised of which was which.
...moreI wouldn’t be a songwriter if it wasn’t for the books I read as a kid. … When you can escape into a book it trains your imagination to think big and to think that more can exist than what you see. Taylor Swift doesn’t just sing about books (You know the words: “Here I […]
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Elissa Nadworny at NPR’s Education Team interviews a researcher and former teacher, Travis Bristol, on the decline of black men in the teaching profession. Bristol’s research discovered that, in several cities, the overall number of black teachers had fallen and the largest loss was among black male teachers. Bristol discusses the minimized roles available for […]
...moreTake that, Mom and Dad. Turns out studying literature can be practical. The Atlantic looks at the evolution of climate fiction, a new genre that’s getting readers interested in environmental issues and inspiring students to study STEM subjects: In this respect, cli-fi is a truly modern literary phenomenon: born as a meme and raised into […]
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Bill Cosby was never the man, the icon, the protector and illustrator of black culture, the guide, the genius we have created in our minds.
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