Before decamping to Brooklyn for the month I saw this on a utility box on Riverside Drive. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to share thoughts about Columbia University. But the daffs were out and there were others busy stamping their ideas on the sidewalk by the park. These were presumably inspired by Jonathan Haidt’s new book – The Anxious…
Midge Hazelbrow, the indomitable co-head of Wayward St. Etheldreda’s Academy, took herself for a brisk constitutional down Riverside Drive to the Eleanor Roosevelt statue. By the time she stepped back into the St. Etheldreda’s building that had been her professional home for almost thirty years, her mind was clear. Of course, she’d already apologized to Tim Endibel for her injudicious…
Before the eruption, it was a typical senior leadership meeting at Wayward. Head of School, Tim Endibel, was talking. On this occasion, he was explaining the new academic initiative for the lower school with a professional tone somewhere between evangelical zeal and a station announcement in the subway. John Swadely, Chief of Marketing, Outreach, and Communications (MOC) director, maintained an…
When I taught fourth and fifth grade at a school that didn’t assign grades, the topic occasionally came up among the students. On the bus, they’d hear their peers from other schools boasting about their As on tests for spelling or naming all the state capitals. Grades seemed like fun and useful bragging points. We always closed out the week…
It was the Gert Loveday review of Rancid Pansies (it’s an anagram) that set me off to read James Hamilton-Paterson’s trilogy of comic novels that chronicles the outlandish misadventures of Gerald Samper. Part Henry Wilt and part Bertie Wooster with a touch of the growing pains of Adrian Mole, Gerald Samper – of the Shropshire Sampers – is his own…
A post on LinkedIn caught my attention this week. It’s had over 11,000 views so I’m not alone. Tanya de Grunwald and Dr. Julie Scanlon had an announcement about the launch of a podcast here and here that you can also read below. The title caught my attention and then the topics, some of which have been rumbling about in…
Women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen of Let Women Speak had a big announcement last week. Give it a watch. And enjoy some Shirley Bassey covering P!nk at the same time. I am officially the leader of a political party called The Party of Women. Yes – it’s the launch of a new officially registered political party – The Party of…
Two women – Kemi Badenoch and Kellie-Jay Keen – made a splash across the pond on Terf Island this week. First up was the UK Equalities Minister and President of the Board of Trade Kemi Badenoch. In a letter to the Commons Women and Equalities select committee, Kemi Badenoch told MPs that she has strong evidence that gay, lesbian, and…
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Julius Caesar Act 1 scene 2. There are those who agree with Cassius that we are in charge of our own destiny And then there are those like T.S.Eliot better grounded in reality who understand that we are all at the mercy of mysteries…
When Claudine Gay resigned as President of Harvard this week the gloating by some conservative activists and commentators was unappealing to put it mildly. Their unseemly glee seemed vindictive and disproportionate. It said more about them and their agenda than it did about Dr. Gay and the dysfunction at Harvard. When Gay did herself few favors with her NYTimes guest…
“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” You may not remember this, but the whole story of To Kill a Mockingbird is Scout Finch’s account of how and why Jem broke his arm. At best I type with two fingers. I’m now down to one. With the help of a malevolent…
One Last week IntrepidEd News published another of my pieces. This one is about how schools are on the front line of the political and emotional turmoil of these times. The world is in crisis and schools are in the middle of it. Schools are on the front line in an emotionally charged space where existential threats amplify parental worries…
I wrote this primarily as a way to sort my ideas out. Feel free to skip. However do take a look below at the painter of the featured intersection: Wilfred Rembert. What a life! And what extraordinary works of art. A Defense of Intersectionality The legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989 although the concept had been…
A bunch of angry shouty men showed up to protest the Standing for Women Let Women Speak event in Leeds as is their wont when women gather anywhere to talk about their lives. Inspired by the barbarism of Hamas, this particular crew had a new mantra to add to their mindless repertoire of bleats : “From the river to the…
It’s been a bit quiet on the R and R front this Fall but I’ve not been entirely idle. I have a piece coming out in Intrepid Ed News next week so that’s something to look forward to along with Thanksgiving. It takes a rather jaundiced eye on the topic of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and how our obsession…