Classrooms for all

We all develop a sense of who we are, and this process is a juggle of one’s sense of self and our culture’s sense of us. Even  as adults, we are constantly refining this sense of self and even working on several different versions of it. Much like having several different resumes that highlight our [...]

Over the years, there have been lots of examples of corporate interests making their way into classrooms. Teachers are well familiar with the posters oh so kindly donated by companies which plug their products in one way or another, or even go so far as to steer the politics of teaching.
Is this just the way [...]

Dov Charney is a sexist lunatic who is given huge amounts of power by virtue of being the CEO of a hundreds-of-millions of dollars a year company. He founded American Apparel and seems to have the business acumen to keep it rolling, although I do wonder if it’s the corporate version of a Ponzi scheme [...]

Questions are the most brilliant way to learn things. It has been said that when students ask more questions than the teacher, that is the definition of success in a classroom. I myself have too many questions and the older I get, the more experiences I gather, the more wisdom I accrue, the more questions [...]

The January issue of Harper’s Magazine, which has been out several weeks, has just made it to the top of my magazine pile. The delightful Harper’s Index, which routinely shows about 40 factoids that reflect in various ways our current culture, is, for this issue nearly trebled in size. (Harper’s is worth the subscription for [...]

So many in the punditry will have us believe that we now live in a post-racial America, but this is, of course, bunk. Ask nearly anyone of color (if you can’t see it yourself). There’s still lots of racism in this country.
Of course, the more, um, ’subtle’ forms of racism (not a very good descriptor, [...]

An excellent post by Stuff White People Do about the influence Disney has on children’s perspectives. It’s not only scary to have that much ingrained racism, sexism and other oppressive perspectives being foisted on children, but it’s also deeply troubling that so many parents are so uncritical of Disney’s products and movies without any real [...]

Last night I woke to use the bathroom at about 1:30 and had some trouble falling back to sleep because one of the fire alarms in the hall was emiting periodic chirps to announce a dead battery. This was frustrating because I didn’t want to change the battery then, but also because the chirps were [...]

I spent Monday and Tuesday at the FertileGround conference. The conference is about sustainability of funding and programs across the state: how do social service organizations sustain their programs and services when funding sources disappear or change? There were a hundred people there connecting with each other to talk about the challenges and successes they [...]

These things happen daily at schools everywhere: Boys inappropriately touching girls in the hallway. Often it’s bumping or brushing up against unexpecting and unwilling recipients, but sometimes it’s more overt. In class, a student who gets frustrated by another, might angrily blurt out “you’re a fag!”. Other students might exclaim “don’t be gay!” Any [...]