Despite sweeping reforms in education in the 20th and 21st centuries, education in the United States has remained essentially unchanged. In Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division (2009), Dr. Anthony Muhammad explains that the fixed state of education in the U.S. is the result of reforms that focus on technical changes (structure, policies, teaching tools) rather than on cultural changes (mindsets and behaviors). Unless a school begins to focus on making cultural changes, no amount of technical changes will ever result in a healthy, productive, and […]
Failing to Launch from Boys to Men: A Troubling Epidemic
Who knew that Matthew McConaughey’s foray into romantic comedy–a most dreadful film genre to most critics–would be so sociologically and culturally relevant? In Dr. Leonard Sax’s Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (2009), he argues that McConaughey’s Failure to Launch is a gem of a movie in that it reflects an American epidemic of men who are underachieving and who seem to be perfectly accepting of that fact. According to Dr. Sax, the United States has been experiencing a […]
The Common Core Is Coming! The Common Core Is Coming!
Technically, the Common Core is already here, but in case one did not know, the saturation of “Common Core aligned” notices on various workbooks, vocabulary texts, and the deluge of Common Core-themed texts on the market would make that announcement clear enough. Anxious parents, and even more anxious and novice teachers, will soon scan these shelves to buy these Common Core-themed texts in the desperate hope that they will be enlightened. Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher’s Rigorous Reading: 5 Access Points for Comprehending Complex Texts (2014) is […]
An Unbelievable Bore
It seems as if every wanna be romance writer makes Amazon their dumping ground. Desperate to find some new authors to diversify my limited favorite authors’ selections, I stumbled upon Terri Osburn’s Home to Stay (2014), a bland, forgettable romance that emphasizes why I hate small town romance series. Home to Stay is the story of Willow Parsons and Randy Navarro, residents of Anchor Island. Willow, living on the island for only a year, works as a bartender and harbors a secret that keeps her emotionally distant and secretive […]