education
November 20, 2009
- Drugging Our Children To Death“Labeling a child, ‘mentally ill,’ is like hanging a sign around his or her neck saying, ‘GARBAGE: Take It Away.’” Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry.Along the smoke-free lanes and carefree byways of Calabasas and far acrossAmerican suburbia, a river of drugs is flowing, and I am not talking illegal ones. Not too long ago, I was ...
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November 17, 2009
- Like thousands of others, I went to the movies last Sunday afternoon to see the much-talked-about “Precious.” And like those other viewers, I was moved by the emotional eloquence of this young woman in peril. There was buzz aplenty as the audience exited the theater: the tragedy of Precious’ life, the shock at her mother’s hatred and violence, the distain and anger at her rapist father. ...
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November 11, 2009
- Mrs. Reed, my high school English teacher, sang in the choir of the First Methodist Church with my grandmother, so when she caught me reading Max Dimont's Jews, God and History instead of the assigned novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, during silent reading period and demanded to know, "Does your grandmother know you are reading that?" she assumed my grandmother would disapprove. What Mrs. ...
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November 3, 2009
- I left France and went in the Republic of the Congo, when I was a kid. When I came in the Congo, I felt something was different from my native country, France like the climate, the way of life and joy that I saw in people, the music and the cuisine. There were certain things that I didn’t look differently from France like in the city life and the school system. I was living in ...
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November 2, 2009
- The last time I had a sabbatical, I not only wrote a textbook but I also figured out that I wanted to leave my marriage. Because I had the wherewithal at that time to take 70 percent of my salary for a year, I took a year off. It was a long, long year, full of wretchedness and a lot of time. And, yes, the summer following my sabbatical, I moved out.As you might imagine, I'm a little nervous ...
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October 20, 2009
- Dear President Obama: There are so many ways in which I am deeply grateful that you are our president. I could write you a long ode with many stanzas of praise. Such an ode would be heartfelt, but also heartfelt is this note that raises my deep concerns about much of the Arne Duncan education policy, a policy you seem to whole-heartedly support. I write as someone who has been a community artist ...
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October 9, 2009
- In big, beautiful, sweeping strokes, she drew her name - Miss Devereaux - in curvaceous, curlicue calligraphy across the black board with a stump of white chalk. She turned and smiled, slowly surveying the faces of the 20 students in her experimental English class. I sat in the far left row of desks, with a view of the hallway, attempting to phonetically sound out the pronuciation of her name in ...
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October 5, 2009
- To what extent does a school's authority extend beyond the school yard? A Saratoga Springs, NY seventh grader may help formalize these boundaries.According to TimesUnion.com, a state trooper interdicted the lad at Maple Avenue Middle school, informing that biking and even walking to school were against the rules. A school might discourage biking to school by refusing to provide ...
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October 3, 2009
- I sat for a minute, looking at the counselor who had requested the meeting, trying to decide if I had heard her correctly. I felt my left hand press against my pounding heart."Did you say, 'incapable of learning?'" I queried. "Yes," she responded, and proceeded to mouth paragraphs of jargon, which my confused brain was incapable of comprehending let alone ...
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September 28, 2009
- We have some of the best kindergartens in the world here in San Francisco. Or they should be, given what kids and parents have to go through to get into these elite institutions. The screening begins at age three and a majority of applicants are turned down for their first choice of kindergarten. The process is grueling, beginning with the application fees and the numerous high-pressure visits to ...
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