To say that I’ve been disappointed with the romance novels I’ve read of late would be an understatement. I don’t know if it’s a case of me struggling to evolve after having read the same authors for the past twenty years, but I’m seriously bummed out that I’ve not been able to binge on reading romances in the way that I used to. My latest attempt at falling in love with a romance came with reading Sophia Nash’s The Once and Future Duchess (2014). I’m sorry […]
Mission: College Access and Success
If you’ve ever wondered why the guidance department seems to be less than helpful in counseling during the college access process, there’s a reason. According to Mandy Savitz-Romer and Suzanne Bouffard in Ready, Willing, and Able: A Developmental Approach to College Access and Success (2014), that reason is the following: “…[S]chool counselors, who typically hold master’s degrees in counseling and licenses provided by state departments of education, rarely obtain training in college counseling…In fact, according to the National Association of College Admissions and Counseling, out of the […]
The Uphill Battle: Changing School Culture
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 […]