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In the past few weeks, I can’t help but feel East Dallas is taking it on the chin. I also know we’re going to make it through this together, says Caryn Carson. Ebola reminds us that we are not in charge of a lot this world brings to our doorstep. But we are in charge of our response to it as a community.
Kim Keller: Too many parent coaches and fans are creating a dangerous culture that puts competition first and kids’ well-being last.
Kimberly Laustsen: As kids, we want adults in our lives to be permissive. As adults, we realize that the injustices we faced as kids might have done us some good.
Perhaps what we should be campaigning for is not absolute avoidance of the substances themselves, but rather encouragement of individual self-confidence and the construction of community support systems around our youngsters, says Suzie Whitman.
Catherine Zhang: Striving to be “enough” is a form of self-inflicted torture. The more we search for validation through external means — numbers, other people — the more we deprive ourselves of long-term happiness.
For every officer in a student organization that is genuinely dedicated to the cause, there are two more just looking for another extracurricular activity to tack on to a resume.
Barbara B. Johnson: Discussion on the meaning of life could and does go on and on with much vigor, but alas no conclusion. No one knows. That is the only real truth.
Catherine Blizzard: I reluctantly gave up my phone and within a matter of days, my perspective had changed completely.
Frank Matthews: It isn’t every day (or for that matter, every century) that you see a Pope literally take on the hierarchy of his church. As one of the millions of “practicing, but shouldn’t be” Catholics, I am cheering him on.
Peter Evett: There is an opportunity cost to all testing. All of the time spent testing, regardless of its value as a tool for student learning, could have been spent in instruction.
Other people’s sexuality used to be an issue with me, says Laurie Lynn Lindemeier. But I look forward to the day when it is not noteworthy at all.
Jeff Fortney Sr.: It takes a teacher who both loves their subject, and seeks out ways to motivate and interest their students for them to learn to love learning.
Carolyn Festa: The fixes seem to be prescriptive rather than diagnostic. They’re based on the pure science of teaching and have lost sight of the art of teaching.
Jeffrey Clapper: My attitude changed when my first real professional mentor took me aside one day and imparted the wisdom of productive failure. What I first thought to just be an oxymoron fast became a personal mantra.
Tracy Begland: If our kids knew more about our young adult selves, they might realize you don’t have to be perfect at 18 to turn out OK.
My family and I loved the pasture at the end of the road where we live, and we befriended a horse there over the years, says David McClure. Then came the bulldozers and earthmovers.
