Schooling
Story Stream
Understanding the Mission of Civic Thought January 09, 2025
In May of 2022, the Board of Regents of the University of Texas approved a motion to establish the School of Civic Leadership. The impetus for the new school was, in part, a widely shared sense that higher education institutions have lost their way. ...
The Joy of Poetry January 09, 2025
In 2003, when results came in for the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (sppa), Dana Gioia took action. The survey was designed by the National Endowment for the Arts, where Gioia served as chairman from 2003 to 2009; the Census Bureau ...
How to Storm and Save an Ivory Tower January 07, 2025
Not until quite recently did American colleges cease being free expression zones. After University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom sounded the alarm with his bestselling The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and...
Schoolhouse Crock January 07, 2025
Linda McMahon will “empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World,” Donald Trump recently effused about his nominee for secretary of education. Although Trump himself has promised ...
The New York City Subway Is a Madhouse. And a Miracle. January 07, 2025
I travel frequently between Los Angeles and New York City, often taking a redeye flight into JFK. The final leg of this journey is nearly always the subway, specifically the A train, which runs the longest subway route in the city, spanning 31 miles ...
Inside the Plan to Teach Robots the Laws of War January 03, 2025
“There’s a lot of unemployed philosophers around,” the philosopher told me. “But how many of them want to go work for the military?” I’d reached out to Peter Asaro, who is also a professor of media at the New School and the vice chair of the Internat...
The Village of Archery Was A Plantation January 02, 2025
“My life on the farm during the Great Depression more nearly resembled farm life fully two thousand years ago than farm life today.” – Jimmy CarterWe know that social change occurs glacially, and that the victories discussed in textbooks represent ra...
The History of Wokeness November 14, 2024
Over the summer, I drove down to one of the numerous beach towns in Ocean County, New Jersey with two friends: one is a cop, the other a special ed teacher and athletic coach; both are black Americans in their late 20s. Over a dinner of chicken franc...
On Classical Education November 14, 2024
What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? And what has the Department of Education to do with the classical education movement? For Tertullian, the second-century church father, the question was whether Hellenic culture and philosophy might divert Christ...
A Disaster Season Like No Other November 14, 2024
College football has never had a disaster season like the one the 2024 Florida State Seminoles are putting on right now.Florida State is one of roughly 14 championship-capable programs at the sport’s top level, part of the select few who can recruit ...
Why Libraries Need Librarians November 14, 2024
People do indeed seem to find librarians oddly mysterious! In August, Western Illinois University laid off its entire librarian faculty and at the same time insisted the university would still have “adequate coverage in the library.” The school seeme...
The Woman Who Defined the Great Depression November 13, 2024
Sanora Babb spent her life dealing with all the multifarious daily perils that prevent writers from writing. She was raised in poverty by a mother who was only 16 when she gave birth to her and an abusive father who spent his days playing semi-pro ba...
Why Gossip Is Fatal to Good Writing November 12, 2024
Writers are great gossips. Get one or three of us alone at a party; add a few gin or whiskey drinks. Ask a question about somebody’s professor from grad school, or about that (married) handsome writer who slept with that other (married) writer at a c...
A History of R.E.M. November 12, 2024
R.E.M. grew out of the vibrant music scene of Athens, Georgia, in 1980. Lead singer Michael Stipe, a recent transplant from the St. Louis suburbs, was taking art classes at the University of Georgia and singing in a kitschy cover band when he met rec...
The Cleveland Cavaliers Are Dialed In November 11, 2024
“I like building little machines,” the Cleveland Cavaliers’ center Jarrett Allen once told a local reporter. He was describing the soil-humidity reader he’d crafted one weekend so that he could know when to water his plants. He grew up taking his toy...
The Magic Mountain Saved My Life November 08, 2024
Just after college, I went to teach English as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village school in West Africa. To help relieve the loneliness, I packed a shortwave radio, a Sony Walkman, and, among other books, a paperback copy of Thomas Mann’s ver...
Aaron Judge Will Have a Very Long Winter November 06, 2024
It was the fifth inning of the fifth game of the World Series. With the Yankees up 5-0, one Dodger runner on, and no outs, L.A.’s Tommy Edman lofted a soft fly ball directly at Aaron Judge, the Yankees center-fielder and one of the best baseball play...
Europe’s Music Meritocracy November 04, 2024
A visit earlier this year to two Baroque masterpieces of the Hapsburg Empire—Prague and Vienna—revealed a classical music ecosystem not usually glimpsed from the United States. From the perspective of New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago, classical mus...
The Return of the One-Room Schoolhouse September 20, 2024
Four years ago, Brittany Jean was a special education teacher at a Miami charter school, trying to manage 100 students who all had learning needs she didn’t have the time or resources to properly address. Now she’s running something called a “microsc...
The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age September 20, 2024
When I was twelve, I used to roller-skate in circles for hours. I was at another new school, the odd man out, bullied by my desk mate. My problems were too complex and modern to explain. So I skated across parking lots, breezeways, and sidewalks, I l...
Carl Hiaasen is the Mark Twain of Florida Men September 18, 2024
Carl Hiaasen and I were talking about recent absurdities in Florida politics, namely Moms for Liberty and their fight against a public liberal arts college, which ended with the school’s new administration literally trashing hundreds of books about g...
Essential Reading on the Constitution September 17, 2024
As Constitution Day falls on September 17, we are in the midst of an historically divisive election season. The gaps between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservative have never seemed wider – and many Americans even feel alienated from th...
The First Great Memoir of the Trump Years September 17, 2024
Emily Witt didn’t set out to write the first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency, the beginning of the pandemic, and the radical moral and political shifts that happened in America between 2016 and 2020. Instead, sh...
Pat McAfee, the Football Bro September 16, 2024
If, on a cool weekend morning in autumn, you happen to be watching “College GameDay,” on ESPN, don’t worry about figuring out which of the broadcasters behind the improbably long desk is Pat McAfee. He’s the one with the roast-pork tan, his hair cut ...
17 Novels You Need to Read This Fall September 12, 2024
Have you noticed yellowing leaves, Labor Day sales, and the return of the school bus, now clanking spiritedly around your neighborhood? Congratulations, you’ve made it to another Big Book Season. There are a lot of books coming out this fall, and a l...
