One of my community college students cheated on my take-home writing assignment. Rather than penning 500 words about a 20th century short story as I had asked, he wrote about a 2000-year-old drama. Another clue that he was trying to hoodwink his instructor was that he copied the critique of
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in” suggested Robert Frost in “The Death of the Hired Man” during a time in our country’s history when family residences changed infrequently. “I live in the same house where my granddaddy was born” is
A high school senior is explaining to her father where she intends to apply to college, how she is refining her search criteria. The student feels strongly that under no circumstances will she apply to Arizona State University. At 65,492 undergraduate students ASU is waaay too big, she says. A
Don’t get me wrong. I’m crazy about the athletic trainers in my gym. I can’t imagine a more committed, supportive bunch of folks. From what I can tell they are sufficiently knowledgeable about kinesiology, physiology and a host of other arcane topics. They could explain anatomy, training, circulation, nutrition or
Are you better or worse than you were four years ago is the perennial kudzu of politics implying, I suppose, that our elected officials are perfectly responsible for the worldwide economy in general and what goes into our shopping carts in particular. I am committed to writing about parenting rather
One of my running buddies was told by his high school language teacher that he would never be able to pass Introductory Spanish, that he should give up on learning a foreign language. And because of his pronounced learning differences, he should probably also give up on higher education altogether.
Yesterday a child came out to wonderCaught a dragonfly inside a jarFearful when the sky was full of thunderAnd tearful at the falling of a star. My last marathon—in the sense of most recent—was 10 years ago. My last marathon—in the sense of “Yeah, I’m never doing that again,” coincided
From Beryl Bainbridge’s 1974 novel, The Bottle Factory Outing: As a child she had been taught it was rude to say no, unless she didn’t mean it. If she was offered another piece of cake and she wanted it, she was obliged to refuse out of politeness. And if she
What do you want me to say when you ask where my kid is applying to college? When you tell me which applications your child is filling out what are you looking for in my response? “One of the saddest consequences of social comparison is how bad we distance ourselves
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