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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
Feb 2, 20231 min read


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 14, 20231 min read


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
Jan 13, 20232 min read


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
Dec 27, 20222 min read


'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
Oct 20, 20222 min read


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 29, 20223 min read


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
Sep 18, 20221 min read


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
Jun 11, 20222 min read


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
May 10, 20222 min read


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
Apr 25, 20222 min read
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
Jan 7, 20202 min read


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
Oct 1, 20182 min read
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 30, 20182 min read


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 29, 20181 min read


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 16, 20181 min read
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 15, 20181 min read


‘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 11, 20182 min read


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
Sep 4, 20182 min read


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 18, 20182 min read


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
Aug 3, 20182 min read
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