“The room seemed suddenly very hot and I saw Mrs. Gray’s face rather too close to mine, her eyes wide open and penetrating, her teeth very small and pointed, her skin a smooth apricot colour.”

March 31, 2019

Why do some novels draw me back year after year, while others – perhaps even more worthy – do not? Maybe, as the NPR commentator noted, returning to books read multiple times is like having a drink with an old friend: a mixture of welcome familiarity … Read More

“The power of poetry is, by a single word perhaps, to instill that energy into the mind which compels the imagination to produce the picture.”

March 18, 2019

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave a series of lectures on Shakespeare in 1811-1812. In this particular lecture, Coleridge says that he considers The Tempest to be “among the ideal” plays because it “appeals to the imagination.”  Coleridge believes that Shakespeare does this by inserting “some touch … Read More

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

March 3, 2019

It’s been a long winter for many of us; we’re weighed down by boots, shovels, and ice scrapers. If you are looking for words of encouragement, consider Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance.” It is (among other things) a pep talk for creative people who are wondering … Read More

“Is there just one more way that you can help keep learners on task, just one more way that you could give them information, just one more way that they could demonstrate their skills?”

February 16, 2019

It’s easy to think of “accessibility issues” from a deficiency-based perspective. For example, sometimes faculty members are asked to do extra things for students with audio-processing limitations. This new book by Thomas Tobin and Kirsten Behling takes a much different approach.  They encourage us to think of … Read More

“Since students are more likely to learn when they do their own thinking, it is useful to encourage as many to think independently about a question as possible.”

January 31, 2019

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 … Read More

“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.”

January 19, 2019

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. … Read More

“Whether teaching or writing, what I really am doing is shepherding revelation; I am the midwife to epiphany.”

January 10, 2019

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 … Read More

Best Books of 2018: Five Favorites

December 21, 2018

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 … 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.”

December 6, 2018

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 … Read More

“From elementary through graduate school, we receive little guidance for the inner journey . . .”

November 23, 2018

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, … Read More

“He wanted revenge. He longed for it. He daydreamed about it.”

November 15, 2018

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 … Read More

“I see the point of poets now. They notice things.”

November 1, 2018

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 … Read More

“Lincoln came close to killing himself in January 1841.”

October 25, 2018

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 … Read More

“To live the complete human catastrophe is terrible indeed, but to write about it?”

October 11, 2018

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 … 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.”

October 4, 2018

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. … Read More