Archive for February 2020
Kaleidoscope
I hold my new kaleidoscope up to the light. I am five years old, and it’s snowing outside on Christmas morning, like it never does anymore. Well-kempt lawns throughout my neighborhood lie blanketed in white. I turn the soft cardboard slowly to reveal the fragmented shadows of brilliant blues, reds, purples, and greens. I long…
Read MoreBuilding bridges
I opened Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Monday afternoon on January 20th looking to retreat from the old, white male readings that had become normal to me in and out of the classroom. While I’ll admit that my required Machiavelli reading was very interesting — given the current consequences in political affairs…
Read MoreThe Ivy League Breeds Obedient Capitalists
Prestigious universities like Cornell are, in theory, institutions where talented young people receive the education, ideas and skills needed to tackle the world’s most pressing issues. A closer look into elite culture reveals that these conceptions are fantasies that serve privileged, wealthy sectors of society that equate their own interests with those of the rest…
Read MoreFrom the Interviewer’s Seat: What to Do and Say to Win Your Next Job
I just announced my retirement after 45 years in education. For the past six years, I’ve been the head of lower school at The Bolles School (FL) and am currently part of a team that’s hiring for my position. As I close this chapter in my professional career, I’m reflecting on my time in independent…
Read MoreColonization is not my burden
The challenges of studying abroad in Madrid as an indigenous student I am a Diné (Navajo) woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the ancestral homelands of the Pueblo people. I come from the Black Streaked Wood People clan, born for white people, where I am a member of the Becenti and Holtz families. In this way,…
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