Why a school district changed its name
The 12,000-student school district in the northwestern Pennsylvania city of Erie is no longer calling itself the Erie School District. Instead, officials are rebranding the district as Erie’s Public Schools, designed to promote the idea that the public owns the schools. Matthew Cummings, the district’s director of communications, was quoted by the Erie Times-News as saying: As […]
‘On the Definition of Hope’: a student poem
Blessed Sheriff is a junior in the International Baccalaureate program at Richard Montgomery High School in Montgomery County, Md., who wants to be a writer and study psychology. She won second place in the 2013 Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest, in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. Here’s a poem, titled On the Definition of […]
Four things on which nearly all teachers agree
Do educators agree on anything these days? A few things, it turns out. Here’s a post on what those are, from Roxanna Elden, a National Board Certified Teacher, speaker, and author. Her book, “See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers“ is a funny, honest, practical guide widely used for teacher training and retention. By […]
Playing the ‘Who Has It Worse?’ game
Who has not played the game “Who Has It Worse?” at one time or another? Here’s a column from the Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, about how this particular game is played to excess during midterm season. It was written by Brooke H. Kantor ’15, a Near Eastern languages and civilizations concentrator in Dunster […]
11-12-13 The Answer Sheet
The Answer Sheet: Fraternity pledge loses testicle in hazing stuntThe nauseating fraternity/sorority stories – many of them involving hazing — just keep on coming. The latest is from Wilmington College in Ohio, where three pledges of Gamma Phi Gamma who were taken to the basement of the fraternity, called “Gobbler House,” and subjected to a series of miserable exercises, including being blindfold