Schools are scenes of extreme manipulation and coercion. Our national and state interest in them is less than benign, or as the soft-hearted among us might say, less than caring. Let us, residents of our…
Posts tagged hard times
Homeschooling, Freely Unequal
Dismantling The Atlantic Monthly Reform Manifesto 2nd Installment I. I introduced the The Atlantic’s Reform pamphlet (“22 pages…”) by focusing on the presentation of content. But, I regret to say I left out what might have been the most…
The Harthouse Exemplar: Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children
As I’ve been immersed in Hard Times this reminded me of this bit regarding the character James Harthouse, Esq., from Book II, chapter 2 ‘You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what…
The Keynote: Everything Was Fact
From Chapter V of Dickens’ Hard Times. THE KEYNOTE. COKETOWN, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind…
Speaking of Books: Murdering the Innocents
And speaking of reading: some books have chapters or sections that can be considered apart from the whole work as something like illustrative set pieces. These pieces are part of the whole, but can be…
So Proud of Our Dirt
I fear we have yet to understand, to wake up to the fact, that every single thing that seems to create contentious debate and divide our citizenry is endemic and intentional. That this disease of…