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                                             Teachers Who Write My apologies if you’ve heard this before, but I’ve been on a life-long campaign to encourage teachers to write...

            The warning flags have been up for a long time, so it didn’t come as a complete surprise when word began to trickle out that the University of Chicago was phasing out its Urban Teacher Education Program (UTEP); still it felt like a punch in the gut. Being part of the team that birthed the program and seeing it through its first 11...

I’m easing my way back into the weekly routine of blogging after a couple of weeks of restorative silence (more about that in later pieces). The easiest transition is to rely on the well-crafted words of others, so let me introduce you to the words of another weekly poster, although she doesn’t call hers a blog. Marian Wright Edelman is the founder and president emerita of the Children’s Defense...

            In our half-century of living and vacationing in small town New England, we’ve attended many Fourth of July fireworks. Even for people like us who are too cynical for our own good, the event awakens what I just heard a radio commentator describe as a sense of “progressive patriotism.” The roads leading to the fireworks are lined...

On a pleasant weekday afternoon last week, I was in our community garden serving my slot with the irrigation team. The job involves hooking up our apparatus to the hydrant on our corner (we have a permit from the city), rolling out the hoses in the southern end of the garden – there’s a similar setup on the north side – and making them available to any gardeners who come by during the posted...