“Listen,” you say, and you pause, like, “I’m trying to figure out how to phrase this.” That’s when I pull out the thick skin, the kind women always keep tied around their waists like an extra flannel shirt, ready to throw on before meetings or rape trials, or walking down the street, or making small-talk […]
Silly Happy
This is a picture of me and my sister. I’m on the left. I am VERY happy. Maybe you can tell from the picture, or maybe it just looks like a garden-variety happy kid picture. Not garden-variety at all. Finger puppets, people. I’m not so sure about my sister. She doesn’t seem unhappy to me, […]
Study of Online vs. In-Person Classes
I read an interesting study recently, “A Randomized Assessment of Online Learning,” published in the American Economic Review. The authors studied the difference between student performance in three formats of the same class: an online format, a fully in-person format, and a blended format. Students were randomly assigned to one of the formats. The result? […]
I’m Never Going to Use This
“I’m never going to use this.” This statement is the battle cry of the reluctant student. It’s hard to argue with this objection because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The problem with the claim is that we never know what we are going to use. I’m a bit of a romantic about education. It broadens […]
What She Said (Well, Some of It)
I like it when a writer says what I would say, only better. I had that experience with Meghan Daum’s The Unspeakable, a collection of essays. A few of the essays had me nodding my head in recognition, especially “On Not Being a Foodie” and “Invisible City.” Boulder was named as America’s Foodiest Town by […]
Netflix at Our House
Summer! What’s better than watching Netflix in the cool basement? DH and I recently finished Breaking Bad. Now we are on to Mad Men. Of course I had heard about this show, and the Don Draper character. But I wasn’t expecting to have a crush on Don Draper! Last night he said to Betty, “you […]
As Unsentimental as It Gets
Michael Lewis has impressive range. I first heard of him in college, when wannabe NYC investment banker classmates were reading Liar’s Poker. I thought it was cool that he also wrote about the other coast, and technology, in The New New Thing. One day in the library, I happened upon Trail Fever, about the 1996 […]
Cheating in College
Last semester, for a change, I instructed my students not to cheat on the final exam. Does that strike you as strange? Some people might think it would be a strange instruction because students know they shouldn’t cheat, so what good is telling them not to? Other people might think it’s strange that I don’t […]
Classroom Walls
My children attended an elementary school with an open floor plan. I was skeptical when I heard about this design. There are no walls around the classrooms? Isn’t it loud? Isn’t it chaotic? Indeed, Bear Creek Elementary did not have fully-walled-off classrooms. But it was not a single undifferentiated open space. Bookshelves and file cabinets […]