One day this summer I took my kids out climbing. Thanks to some friends with keen (obsessive) eyes for rock, I was alerted to some boulders on a strange little greenway installed next to some office parking lots. The boulders range in size from a foot up to around 10 feet. They are limestone, cut […]

Empathy has been the buzz for a while. I already wrote about it once on this blog. It’s a word on a lot of people’s lips. Sympathy has been relegated to being an almost derogatory thing that people who are jerks do. Really they need to step up and be EMpathetic. Empathy is big in […]

I caught up with Dr. Carissa Sapp a couple weeks ago (March of 2021) and we talked about her award-winning dissertation, cyber-bullying, and the critical work of relationship building teachers and leaders must do during crises.

I wrote a paper with my friend Sultana about critical thinking in prison called “Critical Thinking with Nowhere to Go.” She teaches in a women’s prison and I was struck by the fact that, while Sultana was teaching social theory to her students, they faced penalties for praxis, putting their new knowledge into practice. The […]

Among my students, few school diversity topics are more intimidating than transgender students. L, G, B, and even Q seem less unsettling. It’s tough, I think, for teachers to think of children’s bodies at all. To acknowledge their bodies raises contradictions for them as they talk about loving and caring for kids and making a […]

I got a chance about a week ago (February, 2021) to talk with Dr. Sarah Cooper, an assistant principal who works in Morristown, TN. Her dissertation focused on chronic absenteeism. We talked about the importance of absenteeism under current legislation and the lessons she’s learned from her dissertation that apply to life as an AP […]

I got a chance a few weeks ago (November, 2020) to talk with Dr. Angela Briggs, a school counselor who works in Mt. Juliet, TN. Her dissertation focused on parental engagement of students with special needs. We talked generally about her experience and what she learned through research.

In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that the Amish would be exempt from a state law requiring children to attend school until the age of 16. I learned of the case while reading the indispensable Schoolhouse Gate by Justin Driver. The case raises difficult questions despite its 7-0 ruling. At the time, the Amish were […]