Sorry that the posts have been a bit few and far between these days, but I have been unusually busy with the actual business of parenting. My children are settling into their summer routine, which seems thus far to involve a lot of road trips with me behind the wheel. Here is a hodgepodge of items I've been meaning [...]
Want to help your son improve his reading skills over the summer? A good idea, since many children lose ground in reading over the course of the summer and start the new school year with rusty skills which can zap their academic confidence. Here are a few ways to focus on reading this summer: Public Library Summer Reading Programs: [...]
In 2007, a group of Black parents in Loudoun County Maryland became concerned as they watched their middle school sons fall behind in school. These parents' expectations were high: they were raising their sons in one of the state's most affluent communities and sending them to the high performing neighborhood schools. These well-educated, well employed professionals thought they were [...]
Have you heard about the commencement speech given by David McCullough Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts, in which he told the graduating seniors "you are not special"? Rather than deliver the expected "go out and conquer the world" graduation speech, the teacher surprised the gathered body with comments like: You are not special. You [...]
Last night I had the incredible pleasure of sitting at a friend's small dinner party for Jazz at Lincoln Center and listening to Wynton Marsalis jam with his quintet in her living room(!). As Wynton introduced their final piece, "Take the A Train", he mentioned that he had the opportunity to meet Duke Ellington back in 1971, when he [...]