Winning words in National Spelling Bee going back to 1925
It’s National Spelling Bee time again, and some Post colleagues put together a great graphic that tests your ability to spell, here. Below is a selected list of words that won the bee in various years going back to the first one in 1925. You can see the entire list here. 2013 – knaidel 2012 – guetapens 2011 — […]
Mindy Kaling to Harvard law grads: ‘I’m afraid a couple of you probably are evil. That’s just the odds.’
Here’s yet another in my series of interesting/amusing/surprising commencement speeches that have been given in the 2014 graduation season. This one was delivered at Harvard Law School on Wednesday by Mindy Kaling, creator, producer and star of “The Mindy Project” and who had been a cast member on “The Office.” She was introduced by a student who […]
How Maya Angelou touched a young teacher’s life
Years ago, Maya Angelou, who died on Wednesday, made a difference in the life of a young teacher. That teacher, Maja Wilson, explains how in the following post. Wilson is a teacher educator at the University of Maine, Farmington. She taught adult basic education, ESL, and high school in Michigan’s schools for ten years. She […]
Diane Ravitch a candidate for New York governor?
Diane Ravitch a candidate for New York governor? New York newspapers, including The New York Times, are reporting that the Working Families Party, whose New Jersey affiliate just helped get Ras Baraka elected mayor of Newark on the issue of school reform, is considering making her its candidate in this November’s election if it decides […]
All students should learn to code. Right? Not so fast.
It’s the newest thing in education, at least for the moment: teaching kids to learn to code computers. In fact, there is a growing chorus in the business and education world for all students to learn to code and program computers. It is the 21st Century, after all, and it’s a computer world. But education […]
Utah high school alters girls’ yearbook photos to cover skin, remove tattoo
Some female students at a high school in Utah apparently broke the “modesty” standards for their yearbook and discovered that their photos had been changed digitally, with sleeves and necklines added to cover their skin, and a tattoo removed. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that some girls at Wasatch High School in Heber City, named […]
‘I belong to a generation that has fundamentally failed you’ — commencement speaker
In my continuing coverage of interesting 2014 commencement speeches, here’s one that Deborah Bial, president and founder of the Posse Foundation, delivered at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley in which she bashes her own generation, not the usual focus of such events: I wish I could tell you that we have been a good […]
The Answer Sheet 5-28-14
Answer Sheet: Jim Carrey gives commencement speech at Maharishi University of ManagementJim Carrey surprised graduates at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, with a funny, emotional commencement speech in which he told them a poignant story about his father and urged them to walk their own path in life and never settle. “The decisions we make in this moment are based in eith