Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

About Suffering They Were Never Wrong

About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;                                                    …

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Night Mail

This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door. Just watch this clip from “Night Mail” –  the documentary film from 1936 – and be transported to another time, another place. It’s the London, Midland, and…

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Education, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

Darkness and Light

What 60 schools can tell us about teaching 21st century skills. Here’s the TEDx Denver version of the talk Grant Lichtman gave at #naisac13 in Philadelphia. I take my title from an extraordinary compliment that Grant paid Poughkeepsie Day School on his blog where he wrote: “…Poughkeepsie Day School, a school that has preserved the fires of the Progressive Era, un-extinguished, for decades,…

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Education, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Show an Affirming Flame: It’s Not The Real World and That’s a Good Thing

On the last day of the year, time to show an affirming flame as another low dishonest decade ends. I’ll leave all the best and worst and top ten lists to others, but merely remark – that for all the base mendacity in the real world, life in school remains a place of joy and possibility. The words and phrases…

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