It’s a well-documented trend: college students are increasingly reluctant to participate in class discussions. Especially during the early weeks of the semester – like now – creating the sort of classroom environment that fosters discussion is a huge challenge. I turned to this classic book by Derek Bruff for … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
“For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”
The poet Mary Oliver died this week, and I’m convinced that if we all would take a break to read her poetry, we would be strengthened by it. The level of anger – about the shut-down, the bickering, the brutal weather – is remarkably high right now. Mary Oliver believed … Read More
“Whether teaching or writing, what I really am doing is shepherding revelation; I am the midwife to epiphany.”
It’s the dead of winter, which is a hard time to begin something new. And yet, that’s exactly what those of us who are preparing to start a new semester must do. That’s why this is a perfect time for help from poets. This poetry collection comes from The Courage … Read More
Best Books of 2018: Five Favorites
The books I have recommended most often to my friends this year are:
Pioneers! Strong families! Resourcefulness! I’ve always been drawn to the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I’ve often recommended her books to those who are learning to write memoirs. I’m rethinking all of that after reading Prairie … Read More
“It stands to reason, then, that if we notice similar patterns emerging from psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, then they might together help us to understand how human beings learn.”
In the last ten years, research by cognitive psychologists has led to many interesting books on how learning works. And yet, questions about why humans learn the way we do remain. Would a cross-disciplinary approach give us a richer context for understanding what by all accounts is a complex process? … Read More
“From elementary through graduate school, we receive little guidance for the inner journey . . .”
Parker Palmer continues, “even though Socrates – the patron saint of education – regarded self-examination as key to a life worth living.” I couldn’t agree more. Because Parker Palmer has been a steady advocate of doing the “silent, solitary process of reflection” for nearly 50 years, he is the … Read More
“He wanted revenge. He longed for it. He daydreamed about it.”
Is there a person on earth who hasn’t daydreamed about revenge? It’s easy to relate to a person who wants to get even, which is the basic story line in Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. It’s based on The Tempest by Shakespeare. In both stories, the central characters have an … Read More
“I see the point of poets now. They notice things.”
This is what the poet Ruth Padel’s mother said after she was “dragged” to her first poetry reading. The truth is that many have to be “dragged” to poetry because of the technical issues with rhyme and rhythm or with the way ideas are compressed in poetry. To help … Read More
“Lincoln came close to killing himself in January 1841.”
In Flourish, Martin Seligman uses Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill as examples of “severe depressives” who learned to function well even when they were massively depressed. Shouldn’t more people learn how to do this? Yes, says Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association and founder of the positive … Read More
“To live the complete human catastrophe is terrible indeed, but to write about it?”
Karl Ove Knausgaard is a Norwegian writer who conducted a public experiment. He wanted to see what would happen if he wrote honestly about his life, aiming to “penetrate that whole series of conceptions and ideas and images that hang like a sky above reality” in a six-volume novel. On … Read More
“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of nation we are and what direction we want to move in.”
When it seems that division and anger characterize many so many conversations, it helps to look back to see how we made it through terrible times before. This week’s quote comes from a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy three hours after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Speaking… Read More
“Neuroscience has now provided preliminary confirmation that long-term meditators have structural differences in brain areas associated with metacognition and interoception.”
Would you like a guided tour through research on how the brain works? This book is one of about eight published in 2018 that you might find exciting. I’m drawn to this topic because reading about neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to change its structure and patterns of activity – … Read More
“The trends are also remarkably consistent: loneliness, depressive symptoms, major depressive episodes, anxiety, self-injury, and suicide are all on the rise, mostly since 2011.”
Today I heard Dr. Twenge give a presentation to college faculty members on the characteristics of people who were born after 1995. The questions that followed were remarkable for two reasons. First, there was broad acceptance of her research-backed claim that our youngest students are experiencing a rising level of… Read More
“The courage to teach is the courage to keep one’s heart open . . .”
The school year has just started, and I’ve begun to meet students who seem to have everything going for them and other students who seem to have the deck stacked against them. At this point, I don’t know how any of this will unfold, but I can predict that I’ll … Read More
“There is something missing in our definition, vision, of a human being: the need to make.”
Frank Bidart, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, explores this “need to make” in the twenty-part poem “Advice to the Players.” Yes, that’s right: twenty parts. He’s known for psychological complexity and paradoxical observations, and this poem provides both. For example, he writes, “Horrible is the fate … Read More