Last week, I wrote an article called “The Men of Journolist.” It was supposed to be a satirical piece about how liberals, especially liberal journalists, are physically unattractive people. In it, I compared liberals to orcs and Andrew Sullivan to a sea lion. (more)
After I took my final exams, I decided to go to the beach for a few days. I wanted to feel close to God, and since I was a kid the ocean has always connected me to the divine. Growing up I spent a lot of summers at eastern shore of Maryland, about three hours from my home in Washington, D.C. The semester was over. It was time for a break—and to wrap up this diary. (more)
TO: Thomas Toch (more)
It’s go time. (more)
Black people need to expand their vocabulary and read to their kids more. They also need to be nicer parents. (more)
I was wrong about my professor. (more)
There are five philosophies of education: essentialism, perennialism, progressivism, social reconstructivism, and existentialism. In my “Foundations of Education” class, which I am taking to become a certified teacher, we have been given an assignment: pick which approach you prefer. (more)
In 2008, I wrote a book. It’s a conservative argument about sex, rock ‘n’ roll and God. All three things, I argue, can only be fully understood if interpreted through orthodox Catholicism. (more)
I am taking a class to become certified as a teacher, and this week we are learning about the different school curriculums. According to my textbook, “Teachers, Schools and Society,” there is the “visible curriculum,” which is the formal content of what the teacher teaches and the children must learn—the official syllabus. The “hidden curriculum” is what kids learn unintentional from the culture of the school itself—what friendship is like, how sports competition affects relationships, how teachers can change over the course of the year, etc. (more)
Sometimes everything sucks. Life doesn’t seem just hopeless, but malevolent. You can’t find a job. Your girlfriend is mad at you. You physically feel lousy. (more)
Why was I alive? (more)
My “Foundations of Education” class this week was very valuable. Our professor, Karen, a smart and funny thirtysomething Jewish lady, had us make up rules. She told us to pull out a piece of paper and said, “You are an elementary school teacher. Write down the 10 rules that will govern your classroom.” Then she made us do the same thing again, pretending that we were the Dean of the University of Maryland (I’m taking classes for teacher certification; they take place at a college in the Washington, D.C., metro area). (more)
On Dec. 7, 2008, I was in a hospital in Washington, D.C., wondering how long I had to live. The day before I had admitted myself to the emergency room with abdominal pain that I thought was a pulled muscles. Tests had revealed that I had cancer. (more)
I was three weeks into my first classes to become a certified teacher when I decided I had had enough. Not of my professors—both Karen, my Foundations of Education instructor, and Diane, who teaches Introduction to Special Education, are first-rate professors. They know the material, and are passionate about teaching. Both have good senses of humor. The fact that they are both attractive doesn’t hurt either. And I certainly wasn’t tired of the other students. They are bright and compassionate. (more)
I had been a substitute teacher for about two months in the fall of 2008 when I found out I had cancer. I had been feeling tired for months—if not a couple years—but all blood tests had proved negative for Lyme disease, Epstein Barr, and anything else that could cause fatigue. Then I woke up one morning with a pain in my lower left abdomen. I went to the emergency room, and a found out I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. (more)
On page 16 of the textbook “Exceptional Students: Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century,” there is a single-sentence reference to Christianity. “Exceptional Students” is a book about teaching students with what the book calls “impairments,” which are described as “a loss or abnormality of a psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function.” They are what are referred to as special needs students: kids with autism, emotional and physical problems, mental retardation, etc. (more)
I knew I was in trouble when I got the first homework assignment. It was a reading, “Metaphors of Hope,” from “Teachers, Schools, and Society,” our class textbook. “Metaphors of Hope” is an account—supposedly—of what is right about American education. The author, Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld, began teaching in 1956 and is the author of several books on pedagogy. The “metaphors of hope” that Chenfeld writes about are the indications of hope amidst the collapse in every category of the American educational system. (more)
