Yesterday I dealt effectively with a child’s temper tantrum. It mostly involved knowing what NOT to do or say, how to think about the tantrum, and how to express what I was thinking and feeling. I wish I’d been able to deal so effectively with tantrums when my own children were growing up. But maybe…
Since childhood, I’ve known that heat rises. They taught me about that in elementary school, and then they did some “experiment” to show us that they weren’t kidding – that it really does rise. I got the impression that science was a method used to prove that what you already knew was true, was true….
My friends gave me a new computer yesterday. The one I’d had had a little black and white screen, and after several years of having all kinds of trouble with it, I’d gotten to know it. I’d used it to type and to send e-mail. That’s just about all I’d done with it. Before I’d…
Children, like adults, have certain inalienable rights. Some are legal rights, and some are just plain right. We call rights “inalienable,” but I don’t think the word fools anybody; history and the present are full of examples of ways rights have been and are ignored or denied. But we keep trying hard to get our…
The word “innocent” comes from the Latin word “nocere” – “to harm.” It does not come from words having anything to do with either knowledge or intention. So if we decided to go strictly by the word’s root, we would call a person “innocent” if the person did not do any harm, regardless of whether…
I remember how excited I used to get as a child when company was going to come. Some people who didn’t live in our house and follow the various patterns we followed were going to be in our house, and there was no telling what might happen. My parents would usually get food that they…
I love happy endings. I always have. I like comedies. I don’t mean funny shows; some of them are good and some aren’t. I mean shows and books that move from disorder to order. That definition is what makes “comedy” the opposite of “tragedy;” tragedies move from order to disorder. Art is supposed to imitate…
In my recent article about professors, I wrote that there are teachers who put their pupils totally in charge of their own learning. I wrote that that is not teaching, and I’ll stand by that statement. If pupils are totally in charge of their own learning, then what are teachers in charge of? Taking attendance?…
Some of my recent articles have elicited some feedback that deserves some attention. I like that. I’m quite sure that not every idea that makes its way into one of my articles is profound, and when people respond, I feel more sure that they’re listening. I’m not doing what some radio talk show hosts seem…
There are many times when we’re expected – maybe even required – to have something finished well, proof-read, collated, and mailed or handed in by a certain time. Not having done what’s expected when it’s expected may have unpleasant consequences. Your project, though perhaps better than someone else’s, won’t get the credit you think it…