Military History: What Do We Need to Know?
So this year in World History I decided to go with a combined thematic/chronological structure. I organized the whole year around the theme of power, and then split it into five units: Defining Power:...
View ArticleIt All Went By So Fast
I just realized that 20 years ago, I was using an IBM PC and a 1200 baud modem to connect to local bulletin boards. I was getting ready to graduate from high school, and still didn’t know where I would...
View ArticleA Truly Pragmatic Speech
When I watched President Obama’s inaugural speech today, I was struck by how he tied the speech together by the idea of what we do together, as “We, the people.” And I have to say, I think John Dewey...
View ArticleWhat Magic Is This?
Just stealing an item I posted on Facebook: Just got an email from Amazon saying that tracks from many of the CDs I bought from Amazon since 1998 can now be downloaded as MP3s trough their Cloud...
View ArticleThat’s What I Call Synergy
My daughter’s old enough that her school calendar syncs up with the high school calendar. Which means that just as I am trying to get my students to the finish line of the marking period and catch up...
View ArticleIdle Musings
My daughter really likes to play board games. I also really like to play board games. This works out very well. This week, she wanted to get a copy of Clue, so we went to Target. We came THISCLOSE to...
View ArticleOne Too Many Hits to the Head
I mostly stayed away from watching football during the regular season, but I drifted back to check out the playoffs. So I’m glad that Ta-Nahesi Coates keeps putting together pieces like this to remind...
View ArticleThe Power of Words
Dave Barry is the reason I wanted to go into journalism for a very long time. One of the highlights of my college career was the year I wrote a weekly humor column with a voice that was very much...
View ArticleWarming Up
In high school and college I had an ambition to become a writer. I liked putting words together to create stories and share ideas. I was pretty good at it, too . . . not brilliant, and I needed a lot...
View ArticleWinter of All This Content
At my school we have a couple of senior teachers whose job it is to help guide and direct us to make sure we’re all moving in the right direction. One is a math teacher, the other is an English...
View ArticleKnowledge Requires Trust
Yesterday I asked the question, “What is it that makes trying to learn about and understand the world so unappealing to so many people?” While I was writing the post I thought about a lot of things....
View ArticleVotes, Not Voices
Jonathan Chait had a brief post today at New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog, commenting on President Obama’s speech calling on Congress to vote on gun control measures. After citing the...
View ArticleWhen the Board Is a Tablet
My daughter and I both enjoy playing board games, and Ticket to Ride is one of our favorites. Recently she got the iPad version, and we play that sometimes because by adding computer opponents, the...
View ArticleShifting Sagas
I’ve loved epic stories for as long as I can remember. As a first grader I would race home from school so that I could get to the TV in time for Star Blazers, an English version of a Japanese series...
View ArticleBreaker Breaker
It’s the last day of a spring break that wasn’t nearly as productive or as restorative as I wanted it to be. I spent a big chunk of it working with my daughter on a science experiment project. It’s a...
View ArticleOff the Island
From the continuing exploits of the board game playing Thomer-Gillett family: Today we tried out Forbidden Island, another cooperative game. I first heard about the game after the Tabletop episode...
View ArticleTales of Tuesdays
Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a poetry slam organized by one of my colleagues at Parkway Center City High School, a public high school that draws students from all over the city. I...
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Into Gray: The Moral Murk of the New Star Trek Movie
So over the weekend I got a chance to see Star Trek Into Darkness. I don’t want to do a full-fledged review here, but I will say that I felt about this movie much the same as I did about the first...
View ArticleProbably Overthinking THings
So it’s late at night, the rain woke me up, and instead of going back to bed I’m trying to cull from a bunch of resources to find a way to present information about the culture and religion of the...
View ArticleSchool for Society 1: Change Attitudes
Item 1: Reformers must prioritize reform of attitudes over changing policies. The main point of this item is that reformers frequently get caught up in particular policy goals, and don’t do enough to...
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