Classrooms for all

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 [...]

Monday we all returned from April break. There was lots of energy in the halls in the morning before classes begin as people saw each other for the first time. There was also the return of the adolescent drama, those power struggles as young people search for a sense of self in the social hierarchy. [...]

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” This he said to a New York Times reporter in 2006 while discussing how little the rich pay in taxes relative to their incomes. He had noticed that he paid a lower tax rate [...]

Jean Twenge was recently interviewed on Fair Game with Faith Salie. Twenge is a professor at San Diego State University where she studies differences in generations. She has also written a book called Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before, which title is fairly [...]

Oh I’m just kidding! He knows I’m just kidding, he says, turning to the boy, right?
It almost doesn’t matter what just came out of this boy’s mouth, this is generally the first line of defense: I’m just kidding, as if all is made well, the classroom soothed, the world set right as long as those [...]