Without Substance or Purpose, Skills are Inhuman. — Every hour, five days a week, twenty or thirty young people spill from one room in our school to another. An equivalent mechanical analogy would be to imagine the building as a giant box of chambers and chutes filled with assorted balls of various sizes and weights. Every hour a…

Teachers don’t do this by choice, but necessity — Whenever we have fire drills in school (and the Law says we must have them monthly) a student invariably asks me why we do it. It’s a reasonable question if you are ten years old. Ten year olds actually ask more reasonable questions than adults. Fire drills are loud, disruptive…

And a whole lot more — Some things are so blindingly stupid yet so firmly in place that we can’t see them for what they are. But once recognized, what didn’t make sense suddenly does, and everything that seemed sensible is clearly insane. Such is what happened to me, a teacher for 24 years, when I…

It’s not much of an observation to note that schools are communities. Nor is it very insightful to observe that within the larger community of neighborhood, town, state, or nation, schools play an essential role in prosperity, security, and stability. …

Because they drive like assholes. — You would think Americans would be the best drivers in the world. After all, no other nation on the planet spends as much time, money, and attention on and in automobiles. Over 90% of American households have at least one car; over 40% have 2 or more. …

Ignoring their own past, politicians are once again using fear and violence for votes and power. — At some point in the last 200 years, you would have been called a threat to America if you are: Native American. Landless. Muslim. Italian. Illiterate. Polish. Female. Black. Jewish. Chinese. Lesbian. Atheist. Japanese. Homosexual. Catholic. Mexican. Communist. Asian. Mixed race married. Middle Eastern. Hispanic. Unemployed. African. Hippie. Filipino. Indian…

Because it’s bullshit. — Every day I see another hysterical headline about kids falling behind in school. Every. Single. Day. But falling behind what? Falling behind who? Question: if everyone is falling behind, doesn’t that simply mean that everyone is in the same place? If everyone is behind, then who is ahead? And why…

His war on New College makes no sense except in the worst sense possible — In 2010, the son of the leader of America’s most prominent white nationalist movement went to college. Not just any college, but New College, a tiny public liberal arts university in Sarasota, Florida. His father, Don Black, was founder of the Stormfront website, one of the first and largest…

It's too bad every student who is struggling in a subject can't get more personal attention and instruction, but clearly the only cost effective way to teach groups of people is to clump them by age alone and move them through a system of narrowly defined academic classes driven by broadly defined 'subjects.' It's such a shame that a person's age and peer group are the only things that really define their skills and interests. Wouldn't it be great if we could just trade the whole 12 year age-based, fixed growth, large class structure for something like, oh I don't know, individualized certifications in specific skills, interests, or subjects?