Like most of my fellow human beings, I have made mistakes. I lied about eating a second cookie when I was ten years old. I did not signal my intent to turn and accidentally cut off a minivan full of children on their way to soccer practice. I even forgot to wear a hat during […]
Current Events in Education
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
PEN America Report finds rise in nonfiction and diverse titles among school book bans
A new report from PEN America found that thousands of books were removed from U.S. public schools during the 2024–2025 school year, disproportionately featuring people of color, LGBTQ+ characters, and nonfiction subject matter, reflecting what the organization describes as an expansion of educational censorship. According to the report, PEN America documented 3,743 unique titles banned during the […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Turning Recess into a Cultural Celebration
This school year has unfolded during a time when conversations about diversity, immigration, and education seem to be everywhere, leaving a quiet uncertainty about belonging. Many parents and educators are wondering how to continue creating spaces where every child feels seen, safe and like they truly belong. At my children’s elementary school, an answer began […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
West Memphis teacher charged with felony after student calls him “bruh”
A comment from a middle school has ended with one Arkansas teacher arrested for aggravated assault in West Memphis, Arkansas. Tracy Matthews, 56, a teacher at Wonder Junior High School, faces a felony charge for reportedly putting his hands on a student on April 15. West Memphis Police say the incident happened in a classroom […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Opinion
The Objectification of Public Education
When I first entered the classroom at eighteen—as a long-term substitute, a vacancy, a body-to-fill-the-room; so I was hired, so I was told—I carried with me all the freshest and most potent and most upsetting memories of being a student in the same school system. Among them, I remembered how alienating my hunger felt, having […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
A gun came to my room, but it will not define my room
“When despair for the world grows in me,” writes Wendell Berry. “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” This poem is recited at the beginning of every class I teach. The class is called Wilderness Literature. The intent of the poem is to transition from […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
“I Might’ve Made a Mistake” – How the military uses public schools to ‘recruit’ marginalized youth for a lifetime of service
When the powers that be talk about sending kids to war, they aren’t talking about their kids. So, whose kids are they talking about, and where do those kids come from? I teach senior English at an urban high school in upstate New York. The poverty rate here is high. There are no Fortunate Sons […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
The Moral Challenge and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Message to the Student Leaders
On Friday, mourners will have one last chance to pay their respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The public homegoing service in Chicago marks the end of a two weeks of memorials that crisscrossed the country as the nation after the Civil Rights icon died on Feb. 17. His passing is not just a moment […]