Wherein I take the axe to my own ideas: evaluating predictions for 2008
For a few years, I've spent the last week of the calendar year doing the journalist/pundit job of highlighting several stories in the year. I have a few extra hours this week so I'm intending to make some predictions as well about 2011, and I thought, "Gee, what happened to predictions I've made in the […]
Toys, tech, and learning
A few days ago, Michael O'Malley summarized very nicely the cultural history of a middle-class Christmas. (He gives proper credit to Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas.) One of the consequences of a gift-giving culture within families has been the evolution of consumer electronics as children's toys. No, Christmas commercialism isn't entirely responsible for this; […]
Deviance credits and paying attention to the work of work
Some other union members (from K-12 locals) have criticized my last post which points to the excessive absences of Central Falls high school teachers as something that undermines the efforts of K-12 and other unions outside Central Falls defending their jobs when they were scapegoated last winter. The latest Providence Journal article (from yesterday, which […]
Certain Central Falls teachers owe their colleagues a giant apology
After national affiliates and union activists around the country fought to get Central Falls High School teachers their jobs back last winter, it does not help when news breaks of excessive teacher absences by any measure. I'm feeling right now like the defense attorney whose client leaves the courthouse to go rob a bank. Sometimes […]
Welcome to Valerie Strauss readers!
If you came here after reading the Q&A Valerie Strauss posted today, thank you! Stick around, subscribe to the RSS feed, and keep reading. I don't bite, and I try to be entertaining part of the time.