If you took a nice summer vacation, you might have missed the latest frenzy in American political culture: the huge movement to ban plastic straws. It’s real. Several cities in California have passed “straw-on-request” laws. Companies such as Starbucks have promised to eliminate them in two years, though one wonders how paper is going to
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Which hard skill do recent college grads lack the most? In 2016, PayScale.com asked employers this question. The top response was “writing proficiency.” Wow. Our education system teaches few practical skills, but it does emphasize writing. So what gives? Incompetent teachers? Unteachable students? Actually, the problem for many college graduates is having absorbed their academic
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For 28 years, Union Square’s iconic cafe the Coffee Shop—located at 29 Union Square West—served New Yorkers and tourists who wanted to get a glimpse of where Carrie Bradshaw and her friends would hang out on Sex and the City. (The coffee shop was frequently featured on the hit HBO show. And yes, ahem, I’ve
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In his widely discussed book Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz ponders why the interests and imagined possibilities of so many students tend to narrow rather than expand during higher education. As freshmen, he notes, many enter with big plans to be poets, statesmen, teachers, filmmakers, or whatever, but are funneled into narrow tracks of career options
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People love good streets. Americans who visit Europe often spend days simply wandering the winding streets of small towns (like this street in Bayeux, France), taking photographs, shopping in open-air markets, and experiencing a keen enjoyment of spaces—an enjoyment missing from the suburban streets of their own cities and neighborhoods (like this one near my
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I’ve gotten several emails about this article by Joanne Lipman in the Wall Street Journal. The bottom line is that the teachers who get the best results are all about really tough love. The best way to motivate students is to challenge them with realistic (and therefore tough) assessments of their shortcomings. It’s a good idea to shout
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