594. Norks and Noogly

Working with fourth graders, I get to see the interesting ways children deal with feelings that are new to them. Some of them are starting to feel attracted to other children in ways they’re not used to, and seeing that brings back memories. Some adults think the beginnings of romance and sexuality are funny. I…

There’s a saying that the acorn never falls far from the tree. It’s a statement about people’s tendency to resemble their parents. But sometimes the acorn does fall far. Sometimes an apple seems to fall from an oak tree, or an acorn and an apple. Sometimes a tree can be a veritable horn of plenty….

Nelson was a boy who didn’t think much of himself. To underscore his poor self-image, he did things that bothered other people, and got them to back him up on his view of himself. Teachers in the teachers’ room referred to Nelson as “needy,” and he was needy, but “needy” is sometimes used as a…

In our culture, it’s customary to acknowledge people when you happen to get eye contact with them. If you don’t know them, you say “Hi,” and maybe talk about the weather a little. S. I. Hayakawa (whom I admired as a student of language, though I didn’t like his politics) called this “the language of…

The last several years I taught, there was a computer in my classroom. I made good use of it myself, but I really didn’t have a clue how to use it with a class full of children who all wanted to use it. I know there are all kinds of ways to make the computer…

Communicating by e-mail with one of my former pupils, I was recently reminded of the wall that often exists between teacher and pupil (one of the many things Caleb Gattegno taught me was that we should try to use the word “student” only when that’s exactly what we mean). There’s already something called a “generation…