592. No, Virginia

As I write this essay, a current fad among the children I know and children all over the country (e-mail feedback from my friends around the country has confirmed that) is to own an electronic “pet.” These “pets” come on little toys that children can keep in their pockets. They move around on a little…

After school, as a child and as an adolescent, I always came home to a place where I had my own room. That’s where I did or didn’t do my homework. I had a big desk that had a large map of the world on top, covered by a large sheet of glass. Sometimes I’d…

Sometimes a child has difficulty doing what’s supposed to be done in school. Ideally, the child, the child’s parent(s), and school personnel work together to figure out what the difficulty is and what can be done about it. Then the child is given timely and effective help, and what was difficult gets easier. This scenario…

We have more time than children do. Sometimes it feels as if we have less time, but that’s only when we’re thinking about time that hasn’t really happened yet. They probably have more of that, but so what? It hasn’t happened yet! To children, a year seems like forever. We sometimes talk about the impatience…

I have to admit that some holidays make me miss family life. During most of the year, I’m glad to be free and alone, welcoming visitors when they show up, but knowing that they’re only visitors, and I’ll soon be free again to do whatever I feel like doing, not having to answer to anybody….

There was a list of required and suggested books for introductory education courses at Beloit College when I started taking such courses. Heading the list were such titles as How Children Fail (by John Holt), Crisis in the Classroom (by Charles Silverman), and Death at an Early Age (by Jonathan Kozol). These titles alone were…