In the early Wild West days of March and April, I was helping Kimberly plan the online instruction for her second-grade class. What could we do that would simultaneously help her kids cope with the unprecedented conditions of their locked-down lives while at the same time offering challenging academic instruction? Out of those conversations grew a unit on home. Their physical worlds had shrunk to...
Many of you out there are suffering from Zoom fatigue – for good reason. If you’re a school person, you may already be doing either six-hour instructional stints on your screen or, God help us – PD sessions. I have to temper that last snarky remark. Although I hated PD through all of my teaching years, it may actually be useful under the present circumstances by focusing on skills and strategies...
I think I’m more tuned in to the ways of elementary school-age children than most geezers. Before the lockdown, I spent several days each week visiting their classrooms. Most of their teachers were my former students in the Urban Teacher Education Program at the University of Chicago. Almost all the classrooms would be real eye-openers for people who have never borne witness to the amazing things...
I never asked my father if he believed in God. The question would have made no sense to him. It suggested that there was a choice in the matter. We went to synagogue together almost every Shabbat and once I was able to read Hebrew, I learned the order of the service, mostly from watching him – when to stand, when to sit, when to bend your knees, when to recite silently with feet together...
The morning after the tragic and devastating explosion in Beirut, a friend posted on Facebook an interview with Moshe Feiglin, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, once affiliated with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party. He said the explosion was a gift from God. He hoped that Israel had a hand in it and contended that “we” (Jews? Israelis?) were allowed to rejoice because it was Beirut...