Joanne Jacobs
Conservative teachers are quiet
Teachers who are on the political right "speak in whispers behind closed doors," says Daniel Buck in an interview with Rick Hess....
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Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 18
- 2 min
Against self-reliance
Hard work pays off. Even those born in poverty can build a better life. Self-reliance is better than dependence. Not so, argues Alissa...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 17
- 2 min
Why was Rosa Parks told to move to the back of the bus?
Florida is approving new "anti-woke" social studies textbooks, reports Sarah Mervosh in the New York Times. Some publishers think the...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 14
- 2 min
Why even kids who like to read hate English class
English teachers are teaching kids to hate reading, writes Pamela Paul, a New York Times op-ed columnist, in response to Nathan Heller's...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 12
- 2 min
Digital danger: Screen time is stealing childhood
Screen time is very bad for kids, argues Michel Desmurget, a French neuroscientist, in Screen Damage: The Dangers of Digital Media for...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 21
- 2 min
Rewriting Roald Dahl: Nobody's 'fat' or 'female'
Characters can be "enormous" and "beastly," but not "fat" or "ugly," in the new sensitivity-edited versions of Roald Dahl's children's...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 19
- 2 min
Learning is hard
Learning is hard, Dan Willingham tells Laura McKenna. It takes effort. But motivated students can learn effective learning and study...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 5
- 2 min
Youth sports are supposed to be fun
Sports should be fun for kids, writes Linda Flanagan. Instead, young athletes give up their childhood to compete for college scholarships...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 2
- 1 min
Classroom libraries aren't a crime in Florida
The "great Florida classroom library freak-out of 2023" is based on faulty reporting, confusing directives from local school officials...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 14
- 1 min
Grandin: Educate the visual thinkers too
Our society and our schools aren't designed for "visual thinkers, which so many of us neurodivergent folks are," writes Temple Grandin, a...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 13
- 2 min
Sneetches are racist! No, they're anti-racist! Or maybe ...
Dr. Seuss's Sneetches learn that outward differences don't matter. There's no need to pay to get a star added or removed from their...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 27, 2022
- 2 min
It's just kiddie sex, not pedophilia, so no worries
Jonathan Evison's Lawn Boy, doesn't belong in school libraries, say angry parents, because the graphic novel depicts an adult man having...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 20, 2022
- 2 min
'Protect our kids from graphic porn' in the school library
Parents who object to sexually explicit books in school libraries have been labeled "book banners," writes Max Eden, a research fellow at...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 29, 2022
- 3 min
Who decides what books belong in the school library? Can we talk about it?
You probably can't find Hustler in the school library -- or Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal, write Jay Greene and Robert Pondiscio in...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 18, 2022
- 1 min
Reading 'Anne Frank' in Kabul
A secret book club for teen-age girls in Kabul, Afghanistan is reading The Diary of Anne Frank, reports Diaa Hadid for NPR. "Banned from...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 11, 2022
- 2 min
Kids, you’re not ‘stamped’
Moshe K. Levy considers himself “pro-human” rather than “anti-racist,” he writes on FAIR’s site. So he’s not a fan of Ibram X. Kendi’s...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 10, 2022
- 2 min
What’s ‘age appropriate’ for young students?
Parents and teachers want lessons to be “age appropriate,” but disagree on when children are ready for painful topics, writes Marta W....
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 25, 2022
- 2 min
School librarians: Dump ‘Mockingbird,’ ‘Gatsby’ …
— Summer Reading Survey School librarians want to drop To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn from summer reading...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 7, 2020
- 2 min
A More Inclusive Literature Curriculum?
Canon, that which transfers our cultural heritage to the next generation, is out. Giving everyone’s feelings a voice is in: Most English...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 1, 2018
- 2 min
Lawnmower parents raise anxious kids
A middle-school teacher is called to the office so Dad can hand over his child’s water bottle. The girl doesn’t like drinking from the...
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