Learning from Immigrant Perspectives

“What preoccupies me is immediate: the separation I endure with my parents in loss. This is what matters to me: the story of the scholarship boy who returns home one summer from college to discover bewildering silence, facing his parents. This is my story. An American story.” ~Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory, 1982   When […]

Ode to Dewey: Powers, Prophecy and Dignity of Teaching

I believe that this educational process has two sides – one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed, 1897 The last few days have been dreadful— a real deep freeze. Not only has the weather been unbearably cold, but […]

Raising Children to Believe or Not to Believe

I was at Ikea yesterday buying my daughter a desk. Upon our arrival, my husband and I looked at each other and frowned but quickly got into the Ikea “I’m-cute-even-though-I’m-cheap” mode we loved when we were just starting out. I suppose the initial frown was the reality that twenty years later we might have hoped […]