Shifting Identities

I generally don’t pay much attention to Melania Trump but this bit turned up in the New York Times and really pushed my buttons. Let me explain. I am a skeptic when it comes to technology in our classrooms and right now big tech (and the oligarchs who own it) and ed tech (the people who package and sell technology to schools) are in a heated hurry to get AI and robotics to the point where children in our schools will have their own personal mechanical humanoids, despite th

If you studied psychology in college, you might remember Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments [1] . They were disturbing, but enlightening. I have a permanent image in my head of a desperate baby monkey frantically trying to seek soothing and comfort from a wire “mother” who fed it and a cloth “mother” who “comforted” it. These monkeys were removed from their mothers at birth, and instead, offered wire and cloth substitutes. (They generally preferred the cloth “mother” except wh

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut has been concerned about loneliness for several years [1] . In June of 2023 he took to the floor of the Senate to talk about something that most politicians and people can agree about—that we are becoming lonelier as a society. Murphy articulates some of the most obvious causes of this loneliness: too much screen time, a reduction in face-to-face interactions, and a loss of local community connections. He notes that it is oft

Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump’s press secretary, wears a Christian cross around her neck, every time she speaks on his behalf, and most of it is hypocrisy and lies. Does she know what the Christian gospels teach? Her attitude and vituperative comments defending the administration’s behaviors, which are anything but Christian in nature, are ignorant at best or hypocritical at least. While watching her skewer reporters and spew hatred every time she steps up to the podium, I

This article was written at two points in time. The first section was composed on November 7, 2024, the day after Trump’s second electoral victory. The second section was written a few days ago, approximately twelve months after Trump became president again. PART ONE November 7, 2024, the day Trump won a second term. About nineteen years ago, two dear friends died in a small plane crash. It happened the day after we buried my father-in-law. For several weeks, I woke up wi

I’m passionate about education, more specifically, about learning. That’s why I was so surprised that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s recent book, Abundance [1] only mentioned education three or four times in their entire exposé, so few times that “education” wasn’t included in the index. Neither were these words: intelligence, learning, thinking, teaching, or schools. Klein and Thompson offer a framework for America that focuses on what is needed by everyone: cheap clea