The Swing, by Robert Louis StevensonHow do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!Source: The Swing.
That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” is a prophecy that has
hardened into fact. Choose just about any metric you want and it tells
the same story. People have, by now, directly transformed more than
half the ice-free land on earth—some twenty-seven million square
miles—and indirectly half of what remains."
|
 |
| Amazon |
Kolbert opens her book with the prophecy of man's dominion over all the earth. Until very recently, that fact was considered an unalloyed good thing, a sign of God's favor, a sign of human progress. Only recently have we recognized the downsides to our dominion. Kolbert closes her book with this summary, "This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems." Those problems were originally introduced by us exercising our dominion.
 Source: Boston Seaport. |
| Boston Tea Party or Amusement Park Ride |
The culture wars being waged in state legislatures around the country are making teaching an impossible profession.
There’s a rock, and a hard place, and then there’s a classroom. Consider the dilemma of teachers in New Mexico. In January, the month before the state’s Public Education Department finalized a new social-studies curriculum that includes a unit on inequality and justice in which students are asked to “explore inequity throughout the history of the United States and its connection to conflict that arises today,” Republican lawmakers proposed a ban on teaching “the idea that social problems are created by racist or patriarchal societal structures and systems.” The law, if passed, would make the state’s own curriculum a crime.Source: The New Yorker.
This all reminds me of when I used to "help" my sons with their history lessons in elementary school.
 |
| Rotten Tomatoes |
Today I learned education is an art, not a science. Before I get to how I learned that, let's go back to last week, when I couldn't understand why Richardson ISD needed to hire a consultant to develop an RISD Graduate Profile. Here's a profile that I offer to RISD, for free. A graduate is a person who is curious. Period. That's it. If you aren't curious, you haven't been educated. If you are curious, you're set for lifelong learning. QED.
 |
| Rotten Tomatoes |
My ranking of the five nominees:
 |
| Rotten Tomatoes |