Education, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, The Sex Wars

Lying to the Young is Wrong

In his day, the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko’ was something of an international rock star whose readings could fill sports stadiums. He was one of those A-List literati who make the front pages. His poem Lies was much anthologized in English teaching materials in the years following its publication in the Soviet Literary journal Novy Mir in 1959.  The kind…

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Puberty Blockers

Puberty Blockers – a Blight on the Brain Puberty Blockers: A Blight on the Brain Puberty Suppression: Medicine or Malpractice Statement of Purpose In recent years, it has become standard practice for doctors in the United States and other countries to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to adolescents who express dissatisfaction with their bodies or social roles. These drugs are often referred…

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Education, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Back-to-School: First Grade

First Grade by Ron Kortgee Until then, every forest had wolves in it, we thought it would be fun to wear snowshoes all the time, and we could talk to water. So who is this woman with the gray breath calling out names and pointing to the little desks we will occupy for the rest of our lives? I read…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Learners’ Manifesto from Frank Smith

A six-point manifesto from psycholinguist Frank Smith – another of those items found in the basement. I must have prepared it as a hand-out for some long-forgotten purpose or another. I was happy to be reunited.  Frank Smith – who died last year – was one of those essential giants in the land of learning, literacy, and reading.  I loved…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

Get the vaccine. Climb a drainpipe

As is ever the case, I found these images on the IWM site while actually looking for something else. They just seemed to have a little relevance today given the frothing of the anti-vaxxer minority. Apparently, Dr. Fauci has claimed he went to the North Pole personally to vaccinate Santa Claus against  COVID-19. I don’t know whether Santa received immunization…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Where does Good Enough Come from?

It was Donald Winnicott, of course, who coined the phrase good-enough in connection with parenting. He first introduced the term in 1953 although he had worked on the concept for years and the idea is there in his advice to parents in his wartime radio broadcasts. Basically, it recognizes the need for children to learn that: a mother is neither…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Good Enough

The signs are everywhere. Along with so many other institutions, schools – and all those who work in them and for them – are in great distress.  Just look at the teacher responses to this tweet from yesterday One thing you wished that people understood about being a teacher in 2020 below… — Nicole Biscotti, M. Ed. 🍎❤️ (@BiscottiNicole) December…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The School Mission: Wayward Academy or St. Etheldreda’s?

Because I wrote a piece about starting a school I began thinking about school missions. Mostly about how alike they are and how so often completely hollow when you take a look at what really drives the school in question. And then I thought back to all the hours over the years that I have sat with earnest, caring, dedicated…

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To Start a School: A Work in Progress

Who wants to start a school? (Idle thoughts for a wet afternoon) Well just about everyone it seems. We all went to school so we are all experts on education. And there’s money to be made. In a world anxious about the future, lots of it. So all kinds of entrepreneurs, chancers and/or idealists are starting their pop-ups or opening…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

A Bit of History

I was pleased to be invited to contribute something to Trevor Day School’s 90th Anniversary magazine. This is what I wrote, with the addition of some photos from back in the day. How the High School Began At the opening faculty meeting in September 1990, Head of School Jack Dexter announced the theme for the academic year: Change. A year…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

School Sabotage and Survival

I’ve just read Back To My Beginnings by Paddy Staplehurst. It’s a memoir of growing up in St. Etheldreda’s in Bedford – a home for girls that was run by Anglican nuns. Paddy and her younger sister Bille arrive in 1944 to join an older sister, Dawn, after being taken into care by Norfolk County Council because of persistent abuse.…

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“The Art of Crap-Detection”

“Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection” by Neil Postman (Delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English [NCTE], November 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.) With a title like this, I think I ought to dispense with the rhetorical amenities and come straight to the point. For those of you who do not know, it may be worth saying that…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

For Marty, After All

Good friends, gone now. Their photographs on my wall. Until some stranger takes them down, throws them away. No reason to keep them after all. Last week I learned via a Facebook post that Marty Sternstein had died on April 18th. This past week has seen a a social media outpouring of tributes in his memory. Marty was 78 when…

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Education, Food, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Groceries Get Delivered, Learning Does Not

Knowing that as far as our Federal Government is concerned I am – along with pretty much everyone else –  expendable, I am committed to avoiding contracting COVID-19. So that means not going shopping. And it means arranging for deliveries. Almost a full time occupation in itself. And that means someone else taking the risks on my behalf because they…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The New Abnormal

It’s not coronavirus alone but it was almost a final straw on top of other financial threats. Schools are braced for a dose of tough reality.- UK private schools feel pandemic squeeze And so it begins – the great corona virus contraction of 2020. The old new normal is now the new abnormal normal. After the global recession of 2008-2009…

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