Joanne Jacobs
'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
- 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
- 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 10
- 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 9
- 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
- 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...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 29, 2018
- 2 min
GenZ prefer YouTube videos to books
Generation Z — aka post-Millenials –prefers learning from YouTube and videos rather than printed books, reports Lauraine Genota in Ed...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 28, 2018
- 1 min
Who’s been deleting Papa Bear?
The Three Bears story without Papa Bear. Instead Mama Bear is a single parent raising two bears, both of which appear to be female. Or...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 15, 2018
- 1 min
Think (and draw) like a mathematician
book titled Math with Bad Drawings after his blog. “Orlin shows us how to think like a mathematician by teaching us a brand-new game of...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 14, 2018
- 1 min
Would UCLA hire Einstein?
Would UCLA hire Albert Einstein as a professor? asks Heather Mac Donald in the Los Angeles Times. Starting this fall, all faculty...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 11, 2018
- 2 min
‘College for all’ works — for 16% of students
Our education system fails most students, argues Oren Cass, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and author of How the Other Half Learns. ...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 3, 2018
- 2 min
New teen fiction genre: School shootings
Lilia Martinez, 15, a student in Michigan “estimates that of the 28 books she read over the last school year, both for pleasure and...
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 17, 2018
- 2 min
Title IX twisted: From soccer to sex harassment
Once a “reasonable equality-of-opportunity law,” Title IX has gone weirdly astray, writes Christina Hoff Sommers. “What explains the...
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 3, 2018
- 2 min
Going AYP
Roxanna Elden’s Adequate Yearly Progress is an entertaining — and often infuriating — novel about a Texas high school coping with a...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 28, 2018
- 1 min
Build a book: Crafting ‘Treasure Island’
Microsoft, is trying to “schoolify” Minecraft, the wildly popular world-building game. The latest idea, Litcraft, lets kids build models...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 7, 2018
- 2 min
Gates: Facts are your friends
Bill Gates is offering all 2018 college graduates a free download of his favorite book, Hans Rosling’s Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 4, 2018
- 2 min
It’s all hate speech now
The Declaration of Independence includes hate speech, according to Facebook’s algorithm. Christian Britschgi explains on Reason‘s blog....
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 22, 2018
- 1 min
Summer reading
My husband’s grandson is turning 3. Mom and Dad requested a gift of Newtonian Physics for Babies. Here are some other ideas:...