Monthly Archives: June 2015

The Past is a Great Darkness

Posted on June 26, 2015 by JRM

Several of my students recently read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as part of a literature circle involving Feed and Fahrenheit 451. As Handmaid’s Tale was the only one I had not read, I grabbed a copy. While a full … Continue reading →

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Among Schoolchildren – Part 2

Posted on June 26, 2015 by JRM

Tracy Kidder’s book from the 1980s includes some of the most frank assessments of many problems facing schools I’ve read – “In general, America has invested an enormous amount of faith in the idea of education, but not much in … Continue reading →

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The Failure Belt

Posted on June 26, 2015 by JRM

I recently finished Tracy Kidder’s book Among Schoolchildren, which, alas, I have no idea how I made it through seven years of teaching without ever coming up in conversation once. Five Books brought it to my attention with the prompt, … Continue reading →

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A Collection of Memories

Posted on June 13, 2015 by JRM

I missed this Atlantic article “The Problem With History Classes” when it ran back in March. I appreciate Michael Conway’s argument and my only response is “yes!”, although I think his experiences with APUSH were before the recent revisions to … Continue reading →

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Big Boon For Education for the Rich

Posted on June 13, 2015 by JRM

I stopped reading Talking Points Memo on a daily (hourly?) basis when it stopped being available on my RSS feed and I needed a break from my daily outrage over politics around the country. But this week, as I tried … Continue reading →

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