E.L.Konigsburg 1930-2013

The adventure is over. Everything is over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.”
~From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs.Basil E. Frankweiler

An award honoring the teacher—long overdue.

The Minerva Prize, aptly named for the Roman Goddess of wisdom is long overdue and illuminates just how significant excellent teachers are in the life of a child.  “Only Connect”, an imperative for making ties toward understanding and compassion is at the heart of education. By rewarding superior teachers for their excellence and inspirational qualities the Minerva Prize calls attention to the imperative for teachers to connect with their students. The passport to making connections is the passion a teacher has for their subject matter and for their students. Passion like the common cold is easily caught.  

When it comes to educating children, teachers and parents, a child’s first teacher, must work together. Parents have the responsibility and opportunity to make sure teachers receive bright and motivated children, ready to be impassioned learners. 

The Minerva Prize calls attention to teachers who are innovative, passionate and dedicated. Excellent teachers and parents make for excellent students. It is as simple as that. I eagerly look forward to hearing about the new university the Minerva Project expects to open in fall 2015. With seven sites around the world, intending to draw “the world's brightest and most motivated students," with a tuition half that of today's elite private schools, this is exciting news that could impact the world of higher education which is in much need of being shaken up to better adapt to today’s world. I would bang down the door to enroll!

If Poetry is in trouble, who is to blame: Readers or Poets?

Reading poetry shouldn’t be like looking for a needle in a haystack says Diane in a recent post in the WSJ. http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-204274/

Do we really need to ask ourselves why too many people, young and old, don’t like poetry? Poetry has been treated poorly because of the constant demand to analyze and examine it. Why not treat a poem as it wishes to be treated—as a gift which delights the senses—the way the words sound, the way the poem looks on a page, the feelings the poem summons. There is no quicker way to extinguish the pleasure of poetry than to ask what a poem means. On the other hand, would it be so blasphemous to suggest that some poets write in a way that demands deconstruction by a code breaker and are part of the reason people don’t like poetry?

Good poetry is not difficult to love, enjoy this poem by Ogden Nash:

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons