Essays 1-20

Since childhood, I’ve known that heat rises. They taught me about that in elementary school, and then they did some “experiment” to show us that they weren’t kidding – that it really does rise. I got the impression that science was a method used to prove that what you already knew was true, was true….

I recently had a talk with a mother who cares deeply about her daughter. She doesn’t want her daughter to have to deal with some of what she used to have to deal with in school. This woman has bitter memories of teachers who worked to prevent her from being who she was, and she…

Something happened today that I can’t help writing about. Perhaps by the time I’ve written a few paragraphs, I’ll have thought of a point I’m trying to make. But for now, I just have to tell you what happened. All the children in one reading group had just read a story, and they were supposed…

Everybody likes some people more than others. Even teachers. We’re human, too. Teachers, in fact, like some children more than others. Even the most egalitarian teachers, somewhere deep inside, have some favorite children, and some they don’t consider their favorites. A parent or child may have a hunch who the teacher likes or dislikes, but…

I think it was Socrates who said, “Know thyself.” What a deceptively simple thing for him to say! In some ways, we do start out knowing ourselves. We know what we need: food, comfort, warmth, and company. And those needs start out being a big part of who we are. Everybody else has the hard…

Teachers sometimes get so used to problems that they forget that they’re problems, and certainly don’t entertain the notion that there could be solutions. This is often the case with the school building. School buildings are mostly designed by non-teachers. Attention is paid to the needs of teachers and children, partly because some attention is…