Education
Failing focus
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] A few weeks ago, I deleted TikTok. I didn’t make this choice because I…
Read MoreThe Hollowdays
“We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw.” – T.S. Eliot (“The Hollow Men,” 1925) It is already Christmas at Starbucks. They may call it the “holidays,” of course, just one more way of extracting all the caffeine (i.e., authenticity) and profundity…
Read MorePathologizing men is unproductive. We should invest in better men-focused spaces.
In her Oct. 22 op-ed, Julianna Lee ’25 argued that male-only spaces could better Princeton’s campus by building “encouragement, empowerment, and friendship for men.” Columnist Ava Johnson ’27 responded on Nov. 4, contending that male-only spaces fail to address men’s problems and “[run] the risk of breeding misogyny and bullying.” These opinions come at a time when…
Read MoreBanning books is detrimental to intellectual growth
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] Back in February, The Daily Princetonian’s podcast Daybreak interviewed English Professor Anne Cheng on the…
Read MoreLearning and the Brain: Bid the geldings be fruitful?
“And all the time – such is the tragicomedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ In a sort of…
Read MoreLearning and the Brain: On wind and roots
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” – Frederich Nietzsche During the early 1990s, an experiment was taking place in New Mexico called Biosphere 2. It was (and still is) a closed ecological system — air, food, community, everything had to be generated in this biodome. Though now…
Read MoreThe Road to Success Leads Through Failure: A Conversation with Author Michelle Icard
We Can’t Shield Our Kids From Failure. And We Shouldn’t. “Helicopter” parents (monitoring every detail of their children’s lives) and “snowplow” parents (ensuring no obstacles get in their children’s way) mean well: They genuinely believe that shielding their children from failure can help them succeed. But the more I read about raising successful, resilient…
Read MoreNo magic bullet for the bullets…
Dear Marja, I sit here across from the TV, and I hear screaming, crying, yelling, grief. Gun violence at another school, this time in Georgia–12 or so kids, babies really, shot by a 14-year-old. A 14-YEAR-OLD. Gun violence, again, but it isn’t just guns. I think it’s a mindset we have got to change,…
Read MoreBoosting or Breaking Productivity: The Impact of Hyperfixation on ADHD
Are you ever so engrossed in an activity you love that you completely lose track of time? Does it seem like you lose sense of where you are and what’s happening around you? And when you snap back into the reality of what’s going on around you, are you disoriented? People with ADHD and…
Read MoreAnother Generation Cometh
[Editor’s note: This speech was delivered to high school students, teachers, and parents 30 years ago. Unfortunately, its focus may be even more relevant today.] Last term, as I watched recovering alcoholic Michael Tripp speak to you during an assembly, I experienced a moment of recognition. It wasn’t a recognition of my own…
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