WARNING: This article could have been twice or five or ten times as long. The fact that I listed only five items reflects not my naivety, but my desire to keep this article under 1500 words and my editor happy. Enjoy! #1: Back to School Night. Nobody wants to say it so I will. No […]
Jeremy S. Adams
Jeremy S. Adams is the author of HOLLOWED OUT: A Warning About America's Next Generation (2021) as well as Riding the Wave (2020, Solution Tree), The Secrets of Timeless Teachers (2016, Rowman & Littlefield) & Full Classrooms, Empty Selves (2012, Middleman Books). He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University and teaches Political Science at both Bakersfield High School and California State University, Bakersfield. He is the recipient of numerous teaching and writing honors including the 2014 California Teacher of the Year Award (Daughters of the American Revolution), was named the 2012 Kern County Teacher of the Year, was a semi-finalist in 2013 for the California Department of Education’s Teachers of the Year Program, and was a finalist in 2014 for the prestigious Carlston Family Foundation National Teacher Award. The California State Senate recently sponsored a resolution in recognition of his achievements in education. He is a 2018 CSUB (California State University, Bakersfield) Hall of Fame inductee.
It’s Time to Replace the Fourth of July (Kind Of)
In my two decades of teaching civics to high school and college students, I can count on one hand the number of students who have ever been able to correctly identify September 17th as Constitution Day. I don’t blame them. I get it. After all, the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday of the year. […]
“SHOCKING STUDY: 40% of Modern Men & Women Are Unhappy. Here’s How Teachers Can Help”
Western men and women aren’t very happy with their lives. In fact, four out of ten adults regret the lives they have lived thus far. I’ll admit, I typically read these research papers and polling surveys with pronounced skepticism. Modern westerners often possess a hypochondriac disposition, forever focusing on what is lacking in life instead […]
Chasing the Sands of Time: Why Teachers Stand High in the Stream of History
Once in a while in the midst of life’s serpentine journey, the clockwork of life seems to slow for just a few moments. Something enormous and significant seems to swell within. Until very recently in human history, a person would describe this rare sensation as a rousing of “the soul,” an opening of the heavens, […]
Here’s What the Beginning of Teacher Decline Feels Like
Here is something they never taught me in my teacher credential classes two decades ago: how to confront the first signs I am perhaps losing a step in the classroom. I’m not a hipster in my fashion, not woke in my politics, and certainly not hyperaware of the modern trappings of youth culture. I don’t […]
Three Life Lessons for Young Americans on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 86th Birthday
Happy 86th Birthday to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg stands at the intersection of American culture because of the power of her journey, the enormity of her achievements, and the undeniably quintessential American character she exudes. However, pop culture often rides the fast lane towards trivialization. Â She has become, of course, […]
FIVE Ways Modern Teachers Are Being Set Up For Failure
Why are so many American teachers being set up to fail? As a mid-career classroom teacher, my hopes are relatively simple. Really. I want to teach my subject to receptive, well-behaved students in schools with a clear and consistent academic mandate that are safe, well-funded, and nestled within a broader culture that respects the professionalism […]
THREE LIFE LESSONS On John Adams’s 283rd Birthday
Until quite recently, John Adams has been the most underappreciated Founding Father. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of historians such as David McCullough, Joseph Ellis, and Richard Brookhiser, not to mention HBO, this sad relegation is slowly vanishing from the nation’s psyche. It has been replaced, instead, by a sturdy and scholarly appreciation for the […]