"Gardeners of Humankind"

Some years ago, in an enumeration of the sins of modern society, the Canon of Westminster Abbey listed, “Commerce & industry without morality.” Certainly, meeting the needs of the marketplace can constitute a moral exercise if exercised properly, and capitalism – loosely defined as the favoring of private enterprise over state-owned business ventures – has proven itself to be the most efficient…

There is more to School than Reading, Writing or Math

In his Remarks on the Youth Fitness Program in 1961, John F. Kennedy proposed that, “The Strength of our democracy and our country is really no greater in the final analysis than the well-being of our citizens.” My generation was the first to undergo the annual test for physical fitness.

That was more than a half-century ago.

The decades-long trend of increased childhood obesity should be…

“Send these the homeless, tempest tossed, to me”

Have we, as a nation, forgotten the spirit of the poem by Emma Lazarus that adorns our beloved Statue of Liberty? This country has a history rich in human migration that has proved to be a crucial part of our social tapestry. Our culture is enriched by our diversity, not harmed by it.

Fear of the ‘other’ is an unbecoming trait to most Americans. Having spent nearly a quarter-century in local…

How do teachers come to loathe the vocation they once loved?

     It is insufficient to point out that our society is NOT completely rational. Quite to the contrary, in the real educators might be justified in seeking restraint orders to protect themselves from society-at-large. Even when the best of us find our way into the classroom, seldom do more than five years elapse before we understand that success in the classroom requires an unsustainable level…

Why the “minimum wage” should be a “living wage”

For the working class in this nation, the path toward progress has been a rocky road starting as we did with an investor class that believed labor to be no more than chattel. We must never forget that from this nation’s founding, the relationship between the investor class and labor has been oppressive, at its worst, and antagonistic at its best. Centuries of enslavement and indentured servitude…

Se le atribuye a Albert Einstein, quizás erróneamente, la cita: “Dos cosas son infinitas, el universo y la estupidez humana, y todavía no estoy completamente seguro del universo”. Podría argumentar la opinión que la “ignorancia” institucionalizada, no la “estupidez” heredada, se clasifica como uno de nuestros peores defectos como especie. El primero puede ser remediado: el último es más…

Curiosity: all too easy to stifle

Curiosity, genuine intellectual curiosity, is not a habit of mind than can easily be taught in the classroom. However, a long career in the classroom has crystallized into this one inescapable conclusion: curiosity is a behavior – a life skill even –  that children must bring to the classroom to ensure their academic success. 

Teachers coax some academic performance from students with any number…

How Do We Get There From Here?

An old Winston Churchill quote has been getting a lot of play of late, but it bears repeating. “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” The quip is applicable for so many of our national endeavors, except for public education where we try the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

It has…

Sin of modern society: Canon of Westminster Abbey: “Commerce & industry without morality.”

“Decades of corporate government deregulation and reduced funding of important government departments has the country well along the path to a lawless society.” ― Steven Magee

James Carville is reputed to have said, “Businessmen want fewer regulations for the same reason criminals want fewer police; it’s easier to get away with murder!”One must hope that Mr. Carville was speaking…

No time for a retreat from Maryland’s commitment to children!

“An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Enacted in response to the report of the Thornton Commission, the Bridge to Excellence Act promised equity of educational opportunity for all children in the state of Maryland. During the coming session that…

Stepping up in service to public education

“Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils, and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priest, & nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance,”…

The Need for Restorative Justice to address the Decline of Discipline

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders, and love chatter in places of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize their teachers.” Socrates circa 400 B.C.

       Whenever the daily stresses of teaching became too much to…

Elections & Consequences in 2016

“In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again: and in him, too, once more, and of each of us, our terrific responsibility towards human life; towards the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of error, and of God”? James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Part II Section 3, Education.

If this…

Can greatness be a byproduct of Greed, Incorporated?

The Republican nominee for president, Donald J. Trump, proclaimed in late May 2016, “There’s one more thing we have to do to make America wealthy again. And you have to be wealthy to be great, I’m sorry to say it.” What good is wealth if social justice and progress is not the by-product? 

For most of us, wealth is a wholly inadequate measure of this nation; wisdom, decency and compassion must…

Dismissing the factory model school

In his landmark work “Between the World and Me”, Ta-Nehisi Coates laments the hypocritical nature of the message he received in the Baltimore City Schools, “I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance.” When managing misbehavior replaces academic instruction, intellectual development is stifled.

Such circumstances are vexing for both…

Those who cannot teach, govern

Wish a heartfelt “Happy New Year!” to all educators embarking on the new school year for it has become clear that many of our national leaders are oblivious of the eternal optimism that compels dedicated educators to stand before their students each fall.

Just a year ago, two candidates for president suggested last year that Americans will need to work harder to get ahead. Another fantasized…

Don’t delay start of school year to after Labor Day!

Why is this nation stuck on a 9.5-month school calendar that has been proven to have a harmful effect on academic outcomes as a result of the 2.5-month summer hiatus? Why are teachers compelled to spend weeks each year re-establishing basic classroom routines and reviewing concepts that have been forgotten over the summer?

Two reasons stand out…

First, during the Agrarian Age — pre-dating the