education
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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September 26, 2009
- Until September 24, 2009, I hadn't put on an armband since the spring of 1970 when I was a junior in high school. On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, and on May 4 Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder-four students at Kent State-were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard. In their memory and ...
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September 8, 2009
- As the furor goes on over Obama talking to kids in school, we return from Labor Day weekend and say good-bye to another summer (unofficially, of course). A lot has happened over the last week or so, the school speech not being the least significant among them. So what's the big deal?Well, a bunch of Republicans are getting their panties in a bunch over the President speaking to school kids, ...
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September 3, 2009
- Unlike much of America, Philadelphia still hasn’t gone back to school. No early soccer practice. No head-start on the daunting junior-high curriculum. We honor the quaint tradition of waiting until after Labor Day. So my daughters have wrung one last week out of summer. Nevertheless it’s a somber time, the air full of premature briskness and their ennui, which resembles my own ...
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