Tag
Education
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“Totto-chan,” the Myth of Hans Asperger, and Disability Pride amidst Fascism
In the lead up to World War II, one headmaster educated children with a variety of abilities—and doing all he could to protect his students from Japan’s authoritarian government.
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College Worth Fighting For
Professors are in a class struggle, a real fight that cannot be won with critique alone.
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Academic Generosity, Academic Insurgency
During the summer of 2019, funding for the University of Alaska was slashed by the state legislature. With 41 percent of the annual budget, or $130 million …
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Is College Worth It?
What does it take to get to college graduation? The question becomes more urgent as college tuitions rise and education debt accumulates, even though baccalaureate completion remains a baseline credential for at least modestly secure employment. Our sprawling nation’s deep divisions in terms of class, race, and geography mean that people arrive at college with…
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Another Mormon Education
The first sentence Tara Westover writes in her engrossing memoir Educated is a disclaimer: “This story is not about Mormonism.” This is true in the same …
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A History of Reading: Alan Marshall and Helen Keller
On May 9, 1933, the day before the Nazis burned her book as part of their action …
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From Slate to Silicon?
Everyone loves to hate school. Jean-Jacques Rousseau certainly did. In Émile (1762), his treatise on the nature of education, he declared vociferously that he “hate[d] books” and that reading was the “curse of childhood.” The irony …
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What Can Millennials Teach Us about the University?
Perhaps more fragile and contested than ever before, the university today feels …
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Toward the Black Girl Future
To read Eve L. Ewing is to read Chicago. Born and raised in the city’s Logan Square neighborhood in the 1980s and 1990s, Ewing’s love for the city is palpable in …
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Gun Studies Syllabus
In the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting of February 14, 2018, scholar Danielle McGuire invited historians on Twitter to propose readings that would provide resources for gun control activists. In response, Public Books reached out to scholars Caroline Light and Lindsay Livingston to develop a Gun Studies Syllabus. There are an estimated 310 million…
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“To Examine Society and Try to Change It”
I take a seat near the middle of the table at 6:06 p.m. The room soon fills, students clutching coffee, shedding coats; someone brings gummy worms and sends them …
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Ask the Kids
Professors, K–12 teachers, and parents are worried. College students listen to lectures online and feel no need to open a textbook. High school students seem emotionally fragile, worrying about their image on social media. Children spend hours playing computer games or watching online porn, seemingly beyond the reach of their mothers and fathers. Jean Twenge’s…
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Turning Kids into Capital
One of my pet peeves is when I hear a colleague refer to our students as “kids.” They’re not: they are younger than us, sure, but they are still adults who can go to war, operate giant metal boxes on wheels, make all sorts of weighty decisions, acquire disciplinary knowledge and expertise, and work for…
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“The College That Enters the Prison Is Transformed”
The Bard Prison Initiative is a full-time, degree-granting college program …
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Editor 2 Editor: Lindsay Waters and Peter J. Dougherty
What does it take for a scholarly book to reach a broad audience? What should …
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Sanctuary Syllabus
On January 27, 2017, Executive Order 13769 went into effect, banning foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Within hours, Customs and Border Protection agents were detaining travelers, including those with visas and green cards. By the next day, protesters had crammed into airport arrival halls bearing signs of welcome to…
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The Big Picture: School of Trump
Since Trump’s inauguration in January, education policy has not been a priority for the new administration. And, given his views on the matter, including an obsession with promoting alternatives to “government schools,” leaving it on the back burner may truly be a good thing. After nearly a year in office, it’s clear that other issues…
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Virtual Roundtable on Engaged Scholarship and Teaching
With political divisiveness and gaps in access to higher education intensifying, the imperative for universities to interact meaningfully with local and global communities has perhaps never been greater …
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How Ayn Rand Got into the White House
Even though the Trump administration seems to be conducting policy by Twitter, texts longer than 140 characters are rumored to be central to its worldview …
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Who Can Save the University?
That the public university has followed a disastrous trajectory for roughly four decades is a matter of broad agreement. In The Great Mistake, Christopher …
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Elif Batuman’s Apprenticeship
MFA fiction programs may have no fiercer critic than Elif Batuman. She has mocked the writing workshop multiple times in print and mourned the kind of prose it …
