I read Sara Mosle’s article, “What Should Children Read,” in The New York Times with interest. In the article, Mosle shares her disappointment with the content specified by the Common Core State Standards. The national benchmarks set to go into effect in 2014 require that nonfiction comprise 70% of the curriculum. According to Mosle, David Coleman,Continue reading “Models Monday: Reading off the Grid”
Category Archives: Series
Models Monday: VIP (The Thanksgiving Week Edition–Re-post)
I was invited to moderate a film discussion earlier this week for a film that has received rave reviews. My role was minimal. I was only required to ask two questions before turning it over to the audience. It was an interesting experience. I learned how seriously people take film actors and actresses as wellContinue reading “Models Monday: VIP (The Thanksgiving Week Edition–Re-post)”
Models Monday: Avoiding Shellshock
I have been truly amazed by news reports of how shellshocked Mitt Romney and his supporters were by his loss. Claims that Romney had the “sincere belief” he would win despite the fact that he apparently ignored data to the contrary appear extraordinarily generous. I read this “sincere belief” as delusional. If Romney’s failings haveContinue reading “Models Monday: Avoiding Shellshock”
Models Monday: Resources
In my work as an anthropologist studying consumer issues, I have found it useful to think of the environment as more than air, land, and natural resources. Thinking about the consumer environment, from my perspective, requires also thinking about access to important resources: transportation, education, food, shelter, and increasingly, technology. The consumer environment also includesContinue reading “Models Monday: Resources”
Models Monday: Family Planning
I am in Indianapolis. I got here yesterday. As I thought about the autographed Peyton Manning jersey in the restaurant where I ate dinner last night,I couldn’t help but to reflect on my life with the Cleveland Browns. I was raised on the Browns. As a child, I slept in a Brian Sipe jersey. EveryContinue reading “Models Monday: Family Planning”
Models Monday: Quitting an “Elite” School or Cheryl’s Mother’s Example
The article in The New York Times this weekend about Dalton, the Calhoun School, and Trinity, all on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, suggests that minority students’ experiences don’t help make the case that these “elite” schools are good ones. While these schools were apparently interested in recruiting minority students, they weren’t heavily investedContinue reading “Models Monday: Quitting an “Elite” School or Cheryl’s Mother’s Example”
Models Monday: Getting Up
“Why do we fall, sir? So that we might learn to pick ourselves up.” Alfred Pennyworth, Batman This weekend, I watched 30 for 30: Marion Jones: Press Pause–this after viewing 9.79*, another 30 for 30 documentary about the track and field doping scandal involving Ben Johnson in the 1988 Seoul Games. Watching Press Pause was painfulContinue reading “Models Monday: Getting Up”
Models Monday: Sustaining Fictions (Re-post)
I don’t know how these things are connected, but I’ve been holding them together in my mind for some time now. For some reason, I’ve been thinking about these lists we chronicle in popular culture at this time of year at the same time that I have been thinking about the stories that we needContinue reading “Models Monday: Sustaining Fictions (Re-post)”
Models Monday: Ava DuVernay
Last Thursday, I had the great pleasure of being in the audience at Spelman College where filmmaker Ava DuVernay screened three clips from her film Middle of Nowhere, which won her the Best Director’s nod at Sundance in January. The film personalizes mass incarceration through the lens of one couple’s experience. If you have notContinue reading “Models Monday: Ava DuVernay”
Models Monday: Paying Attention in the Age of Angry Birds
A friend asked me to be on a book panel to discuss Manning Marable’s book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention that a group of college honors students had been assigned to read over the summer and I accepted her invitation. Only after receiving the itinerary did I learn that the event would take placeContinue reading “Models Monday: Paying Attention in the Age of Angry Birds”
In Reverie Blog 