594. Norks and Noogly

The Pat I’m writing to is a fictional character – a composite of all the people who, for one reason or another, didn’t think I was doing a very good job teaching. Pat may have been a parent, a teacher, an administrator, or a child. There were more people who thought that way in 1969,…

Parents sometimes worry about what influences other people have on their children. They try to instill certain values in their children, and protect their children from harm. Sometimes they try too hard, insisting on values that aren’t appropriate for their children, or protecting their children too much. After all, there’s only so much we can…

Probably, most of you get paid. If you’re lucky, as I was, you get paid to do things you like to do. Maybe, as I do now, you get paid for having already done those things. That’s even better. But if you’re unemployed, you have to rely on society’s sense of fairness. The money you…

Life can be fun and exciting for a child who is entering a new classroom and/or school mid-year. The chances are that no one knows who this stranger is, and that gives the newcomer a chance to redefine herself/himself, highlighting aspects of his/her personality that weren’t highlighted in the old place, and maybe concealing some…

In a recent essay, I wrote about the fury I felt when my daughter played hooky. That fury was not typical of me, and I wish I could rewind to that time and tape over it (and then fast forward to now). My views on skipping school are close to the views of Mark Twain;…

I think it’s significant that I wrote 317 articles without even mentioning the possibility that some people may decide not to go to school any longer than they have to. As far as I know, all of my friends finished high school, and most of them went on to college. If I found out that…