“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.” Albert Einstein Several years ago while on vacation in Amsterdam, my husband bought me a ring. It was a thin ring encrusted with seed diamonds to be worn stacked with my engagement ring and wedding band. One day shortly after he gave it to me, it accidentally slipped off my finger. After spending several days retracing my steps, cleaning out my car and calling all the spots I had visited, I accepted the fact that it was probably gone for good. About a week later, I had the oddest dream. In fact, it was…
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The Impact of Mentorship
“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.” ― Galileo My mentor died last month. It was unexpected. When I heard the news, my breath caught in my throat and a simple “no” escaped my lips. Imre Molnar was the Provost of College for Creative Studies. A former corporate designer, Imre choose a career in education because he believed in students and was inspired by the kind of innovation one only sees in the freedom of an experimental incubator like a student studio. When the President of our college organized a meeting for faculty and staff impacted by Imre’s death dozens showed up – including professors, maintenance men, department chairs and administrative staff. It says a lot about a person when his impact extends far beyond the boundaries of…
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Lessons from the Kindergarten Classroom
“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” ― Plato Every semester I have my students read a short article written by Harry L. Gracey called “Kindergarten as Academic Boot Camp”. The basic thesis of the article is that the most successful student is typically the child who embodies the rules and routines of the classroom. Gracey offers numerous classroom anecdotes to show how noisy children are quieted, routine is implemented and how school in general exerts a strong “normalizing” influence on children. For some reason, this article outrages my students. Initially my students’ reaction to the Gracey…
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Be Good For the Sake of Being Good
My middle daughter is going off to college tomorrow morning. I am hoping the TTSM audience will indulge my mother heart by allowing me to share a favorite story about Cami. I am confident it counts as an “educational” message. When Cami was in sixth grade at the Sacred Heart Academy, one of her favorite teachers told her about a “sister” school in Uganda. Cami was very moved by the presentation and decided she wanted to “help out” over the summer months by raising some money to support the school. I, of course, was pleased with her enthusiasm and encouraged her to set up a lemonade stand and put some of her babysitting money toward the project. Frankly, as the summer progressed, I forgot about the school in Uganda and…
