In the latest Mother Jones, Tasneem Raja argues that “code literacy” is becoming just as critical as reading and writing in education. To understand how we as a society might begin to take it seriously, it also helps to understand the history of literacy itself: Reading and writing have become what researchers have called “interiorized” […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
On Not Going to College After Excelling in School
I know that for the rest of my life, I’ll have to explain myself to future employers. My hope is that my work and life experience become of such high quality that my education (or lack thereof) will fall off the bottom of my résumé. I’m aware it will be an uphill battle. Traveling was […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Old Music Industry: ‘A System Specifically Engineered to Waste the Band’s Money’
During the 90s there was something of an arms race to see who could write the biggest deal. That is, the deal with the most money being spent on the band’s behalf. In a singularly painless contest the money would either be paid to the band as a royalty, which would take that money out […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
How the Emperor Became Human (and MacArthur Became Divine)
The end of divine rule in postwar Japan, and the absolute power of General MacArthur.
Posted inEditor's Pick
American Horror, Ivy League Edition
“Perhaps what Will Hunting says to a pompous Harvard scholar is really true: ‘You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda’ picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.’ Except, of course, an Ivy League education has become even more obscenely expensive in the 17 years […]
Posted inReading List
Oh, the Humanities! A Reading List Pertaining to the English Major
In college, I rearranged my majors and minors, all in the humanities, for years. I loved everything. Finally, I majored in English. It was fate—second-grade me was constantly in trouble for sneaking books under her desk. Majoring in English was both the joy and bane of my life. I struggled with a Faulkner-heavy Southern Lit course, […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A Step Back for The Civil Rights Movement
Over the next three decades, Hank Sanders became a fixture in the statehouse, ascending to the chairmanship of the Senate’s Finance and Taxation Education Committee. From his expansive office just off the Senate floor, he controlled Alabama’s Education Trust Fund, the largest operating budget in state government. Sanders tried to exercise his power to represent […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Movement to ‘Unschool’ Children
There’s a name for the kind of education Fin and Rye are getting. It’s called unschooling, though Penny and I have never been fond of the term. But “self-directed, adult-facilitated life learning in the context of their own unique interests” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so unschooling it is. It is already obvious that […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Class, Privilege and Wealth at Two Very Different High Schools
University Heights High School is located in one of the poorest congressional district in America, and six miles away, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School charges $43,000-a-year for tuition and is attended by the children of celebrities.
Posted inNonfiction
The Dolphin Trainer Who Loved Dolphins Too Much
Dolphin trainer Ashley Guidry loved her job and the animals she worked with—in particular, a dolphin calf named Chopper. But years of seeing how business was done behind the scenes at a small marine park made her come to the painful conclusion that she had to walk away from it all.
