Posts Tagged ‘High school’

Going home

For several months, I have been spending some time working in an emergency department in a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska; a few weeks ago taking a day off and driving 210 miles to the small town where I was born a little over 60 years ago, Holdrege, Nebraska. It was 52 years ago that we […]

Gratitude is a burden

“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.” Tacitus, 56 AD – 120 AD, Roman historian Does this sound a bit too much like today, suggesting we may have progressed little this past 2,000 years? Is gratitude still a burden? Is revenge still […]

Teaching children to murder

Littleton, Colorado, 1999; Santee, California, 2001; Cold Springs, Minnesota, 2003; Jacksboro, Tennessee, 2005; Cleveland, Ohio, 2007.  These are just a few of the 60 school shootings occurring since Columbine in 1999, double previous decades. The propensity to kill is a learned behavior, not something children do naturally.  So, where do we learn about teaching people […]

What do we see in our flag? – Fourth of July, 2009

A high school social studies teacher took a unique approach to teaching her classes the value of being an American.  She had all the student desks removed from her classroom. And, as each period’s class arrived, shocked there were no desks, she said to them, “I want you to have a desk, but before you […]

The best man I ever new – Father’s Day 2009

When the call came that August day, I was working at Safeway, stocking grocery shelves to earn money for college.  My dad was dead; a heart attack.  The family anchor was gone. Dad was 60, I was 19, and too young to lose my dad.  I was at the age when you know the least, […]