Liberal Arts Classes Could Teach Neil deGrasse Tyson a Thing or Two about the Path from Data to Wisdom

Your mileage may vary, but I immediately thought of Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, who states this problem in negative terms. Yes, she’s a made-up character delivering a line in a movie about an imaginary ring from a fantasy book, but anyone who really understands Tolkien’s story will have reflected on the…

‘These are all fake news,’ said the honor student. He was wrong.

Kim Ash teaches the Newseum’s “Fighting Fake News” class. Whereas teachers once feared that teenagers would fall for everything they read online, now they’re concerned young people won’t believe anything they read. —Washington Post Similar:Washington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeA.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting WorseDoctor…

Classroom Vignette: MLA Style

Student (shouldering backpack and heading for door): Why does MLA Style have to keep changing? Me (checks clock): Well… Similar:Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyPater Noster Passenger ElevatorsNotes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh CycleThis morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque in Mecca.…

Shakespeare on Eclipses

Prepping for tomorrow’s first meeting of my Shakespeare class. In 1598, during Shakespeare’s lifetime, England experienced a total solar eclipse, with the path of totality tracking from Cornwall in the southwest up to Aberdeen in Scotland. As we in the twenty-first century prepare for the Great American Eclipse on Aug 21, let’s look at three of the…

Laying out our anti-socialization defenses & cleaning out the penitence shack for another year of homeschool.

Visiting Fort Ligonier. When the girl sat at this table in the officer’s barracks, I started humming the “Bilbo writing at Bag End” music. “Stop that,” she said. “You’re making me cry.” Similar:Washington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare…

The girl’s modern dance choreography workshop

Similar:Washington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsPater Noster Passenger ElevatorsNotes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh CycleThis morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque…

The Feynman Technique

To master a topic, pretend you are teaching it to someone. Use simple language and analogies. If you stumble, study the topic some more, then try again. Richard Feynman was a physicist who received a nobel prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was notorious for asking his mathematicians to explain concepts in simple…

Student Journalists Are Our Future—We Should Start Treating Them Like It

Catherine Palmer was already a seasoned student journalist at The Johns Hopkins News-Letter when Freddie Gray, a Baltimore native and black man, died in police custody, provoking protests across the city that swelled into what would be called the Baltimore Uprising. Even so, she was only 19 when she found herself one of the first reporters on…

The girl was cast as Luciana (the younger sister) in The Comedy of Errors in the PPT’s summer Shakespeare camp.

Show is July 28 at the O’Reilly Theater. (This Spidey selfie for “super hero day” is the pic she wanted me to post.) Similar:Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsPater Noster Passenger ElevatorsNotes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh…

Liberal Arts Majors Are the Future of the Tech Industry

My sister the computer programmer benefitted early in her career because she was an excellent writer. She was so good at taking notes that people would invite to her important meetings so there would be a good record, and people would consult her about important topics covered during those meetings. My brother the electrical engineer…

Telling Trump’s Story to Children: For Book Publishers, It’s Tricky

This is a challenging writing task. Presidential biographies are a staple of children’s book publishing, and of classrooms across the country. Nonfiction for children is a surging category, particularly in light of a Common Core mandate that schools put greater emphasis on it in their curriculum. Publishers like Penguin Young Readers, Scholastic and Time for…