Everything Old Is New Again

Diane Ravitch is a name known to some, to few, and to many.

It depends upon what circles one travels in to determine who knows whom.

If it’s educational circles, then one is certainly well aware of her stature and renown. One wouldn’t suppose that bricklayers, stonemasons, heavy equipment operators, or welders would recognize her name. But, they could. One never knows.

However, Ms. Ravitch is a well-respected, and highly-regarded education historian, policy analyst, and author, who also blogs on her personal website DianeRavitch.net, and for many years, has advocated for improvements in Public Education.

She was appointed by POTUSes Clinton and George W. Bush to public service, served as Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991-93 to Secretary of Education, Lamar Alexander. From there, she was appointed membership to the National Assessment Governing Board, which supervises the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and served in that capacity from 1997-2004. She earned her PhD from Columbia University, and undergraduate from Wellesley College.

And ardent education reformer who opposes Common Core and the seemingly incessant testing to which students are subjected, she has said that the only sure way to stop corporations’ efforts to undermine taxpayer-funded Public Education is to “build a political movement so united and clear in its purpose, that it would be heard in every state Capitol, and even in Washington, D.C.”

Caricature of James Russell Lowell, by Théobald Chartran published in Vanity Fair, 21 August 1880.

Whereas formerly, she supported the school voucher system, she now opposes it, and in her 2010 book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” which NPR described as a “terrific and timely book,” she explains why she did so, citing an abundance of “new evidence.”

In a January 22, 2020 entry in her blog, she recently posted a poem from late American poet

The Penultimate Reading List

Summertime is quickly drawing to a close, and some of you -no doubt- have enjoyed (or at least attempted to enjoy) reading a few good books during these past few months.

However, just in the case you didn’t, and if you’re looking for a good list from which to choose, either for yourself, your children, or others, here’s an EXCELLENT starting point.

Most are novels, some are not, many are classics, some are from antiquity, some from modernity, some obscure, while others (and their authors) renown. In some cases, authors are not listed because many -if not most- of the works are so renown, or they’re simply unknown; and in the cases where some help could help identify or clarify, the author’s name is provided.

While by no means is this list wholly complete, it’s a damn good start.

If anyone has read at least 1/3 of these, they may consider themselves reasonably well read.
 (While I’ve not read all of the selections, I have read many – and am familiar with most.)

And remember, if you can’t read, you’re doomed!
Don’t ban books!

1.) Daphnis & Chloe (Longus),
2.) I, Robot (Isaac Asimov),
3.) To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee),
4.) Lord of the Flies (William Golding),
5.) The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas),
6.) Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift),
7.) The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck),
8.) The Catcher in the Rye (J.D.Salinger),
9.) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle),
10.) Frankenstein (Mary Shelley),

11.) 1984 (George Orwell),
12.) The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells),
13.) David Copperfield (Charles Dickens),
14.) Don Quixote (Don Quijote de la Mancha),
15.) Moby-Dick (Herman Mellville),
16.) Metamorphoses (Ovid),
17.) The Napoleon of Notting Hill (G.K.Chesterton),
18.) Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan)
19.) Ulysses (James Joyce),
20.) Catch-22 (Joseph Heller),

21.) Robinson Crusoe,
22.) Clarissa (Samuel Richardson),
23.) Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë),
24.) The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne),
25.) Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert),
26.) The Brothers Karamazov ( Fyodor Dostoyevsky),
27.) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stephenson),
28.) The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde),
29.) The Call of the Wild (Jack London),
30.) The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame),

31.) Men Without Women (Ernest Hemingway),
32.) Brave New World (Aldous Huxley),
33.) The Plague (Albert Camus),
34.) Charlotte’s Web (E.B.White),
35.) The Lord Of The Rings (J.R.R.Tolkein),
36.) On the Road (Jack Kerouac),
37.) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,
38.) Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov),
39.) The Tin Drum (Günter Wilhelm Grass),

“It may not be true, but that’s the way I choose to believe,” and other dumb sayings.

“It may not be true, but that’s the way I choose to believe.”

Today, I overheard someone make that remark.

It was made in reference to an  issue of faith, or religion, and was an adjunct, or follow-up comment – as if issuing an apology of sorts – to a rather benign and off-the-cuff utterance made by the same person, such as “God bless you,” or “the good LORD willing, and the creek don’t rise.”

Who made it, and where it was made is of no consequence.

What I’d like to focus upon is

The Pursuit of Happyness

Originally, I thought to entitle this entry, “Looking Back by Looking Forward by Looking Back by Looking Forward by Looking Back by Looking Forward.” However, as I briefly pondered the title, working it as I might, it occurred to me to borrow the title from a 2006 biographical motion picture which story continues to resonate within me, for I can identify so very well with the struggles of the character whom is portrayed – “The Pursuit of Happyness,” starring Will Smith, as Chris Gardner.