21st Century Skills Require 25 Centuries of Context
My first brush with politics as a “full contact sport” came in 1973 when the Watergate hearings were televised gavel-to-gavel on black and white TV. The three networks, ABC, CBS […]
Boiling It Down: Think. Learn. Love. Live.
I didn’t spend much time in the kitchen as a child, unless it was to get under Grandma’s feet, so I had to wait until I was married to learn […]
The Butting Order: How Middle School Students Rank Themselves in School
Middle school student are very much aware of what we call the “butting order.” We all have our own preferences and opinions that form our individual kingdoms. Within our own kingdoms, […]
Marking Milestones: What You See if You Stay Long Enough
Every year about this time year I get a bittersweet feeling deep down in my soul. I’m preparing to let go of students I’ve watched grow up, some of whose […]
The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships: Truth, Goodness and Beauty
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” This line by Christopher Marlow in Doctor Faustus (c. 1590) is one of the […]
Yes, We Are Thinking About Safety…All The Time
Recent events in South Florida are disturbing to those of us who teach and work in schools. On the one hand these events seem far away and removed; on the […]
Where do the Grads Go?
Current and prospective parents often ask what our students do after graduation from the School of Rhetoric. They’re really asking a couple of questions, “Where do they go to college?” […]
Looking Forward to Easter
My students in middle school chapel all agree with me that they look forward to Christmas. Along about Halloween the stores are displaying their obnoxious Christmas sale signs, and by Thanksgiving, we […]
Character Matters Now
Wow! The last several weeks have driven home to me a singular truth. Character matters. And what is character? Someone quipped, “Character is who you are when you are by […]
I Didn’t Learn How to Learn…
How many times have you heard someone say, perhaps even yourself, “I didn’t learn how to learn until I got to college!”? I distinctly remember my own experience as a […]
