psychology dector

“Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.” Edna St. Vincent Millay I am haunted by the face of Rigoberto Ruelas Jr . People who choose to take their own lives do so for a number of reasons. There may be an inciting incident, something that pushes them over the edge, but it is too easy to point to that one event and say, that is why they did it. I do not know Ruelas, his family, or what transpired in the thirty-nine-year old’s mind that led him to that bridge in the forest. What we do know from friends, family, and colleagues is that he was tremendously disturbed about the publication of his name and “value-added” score as a teacher in the Los Angeles Times . People outside of education wonder what the fuss is about. It’s time we exposed the inept and deficient teachers clogging our schools, some might say. Teachers take great pride in their work. They put their hearts, souls, and personalities into the classroom to reach those students. No one shows up...

Waiting For “Superman” Directed by Davis Guggenheim Paramount Vantage / Participant Media / Walden Media Select Theaters September 24, 2010; Rated PG Davis Guggenheim, Academy award winning director of An Inconvenient Truth , has made a sad and disturbing new film. It is timely and necessary, a polemic that must be seen by every American. I first became aware of Guggenheim’s work with his 2001 documentary on education called The First Year . In that film, he portrayed the heroism of a group of new teachers as they made their way through their first school year. At the end of the documentary, when one of the new teachers goes home for a visit and sees the playground equipment and resources the local school has in comparison to the school where he works, his emotional breakdown had me in tears. In his latest film, I found myself moved again by Guggenheim’s ability to tell an intensely important and emotional story. For me, the anger and sadness of the film comes from watching kids and pa...

I recently started working with Mount St. Mary’s College students on their writing. The experience has already proven to be gratifying. The work is important and necessary, and the students, faculty and staff of the college are incredibly welcoming and warm. There is, however, something that makes this experience even more powerful for me. Yesterday, I started my day on campus attending the Mass of the Holy Spirit, an annual liturgy celebrating the start of another school year. The chapel on campus was filled to capacity, and most everyone wore the color red. There was a full choir with a band, as well as elaborate rituals throughout the ceremony incorporating various cultures and traditions. It was a lively service, nothing like Masses at my Catholic parish church. There was a palpable joy in the audience, and I felt a part of the community. At some point in the service, I began thinking of my grandmother who attended the Mount in the 1930s. A long time ago, she wanted me to attend...

Time Magazine September 20, 2010 $49.00 for one year subscription www.time.com Time Magazine devoted its September 20 National Service Issue to a sixteen-page report on education. Managing editor Richard Stengel says they threw two reporters at the subject, Amanda Ripley and John Cloud. The results are two articles that offer a thumbnail sketch of the national discussion about education currently in progress. Amanda Ripley’s article is about the Davis Guggenheim documentary that will be released on September 24 entitled Waiting For “Superman.” Guggenheim is the Academy Award-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth . The movie sounds interesting, moving, and absolutely necessary to further the discussion of American education in the twenty-first century. The article also comes with sidebars containing statistics regarding the state of education in this country. Ripley focuses on how the project came about, the challenges faced during production, and what the possible effects the ...

Mental Floss Magazine Published bimonthly, 6 issues per year, $21.97 (U.S.) Digital subscriptions are available www.mentalfloss.com A good magazine should follow the rule to leave the reader smarter. That is what Mental Floss Magazine does under the tagline, “Feel smart again.” Can one return to smartness? Nah. Smart people enjoy smart reading, and Mental Floss simply enhances smartness and gives us stuff to talk about with other smart people. If one knows no smart people, there are plenty of ads for MENSA in every issue. I found this magazine several years ago on my news stand racks, and I have been hooked ever since. A usual assignment in my writing classes is to have students each take a magazine—think New Yorker , Atlantic, and Harper’s , not People —and do a presentation on the publication for the class, detailing subscription rates, content, number of ads, history, submission policies, and include a sample article or feature. The first time out, the results were predictable:...

In the ramp up to this weekend’s anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, two issues preoccupied the country. One was the desire of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. The second was a Gainesville, Florida pastor, Terry Jones, who threatened to have his congregation of approximately fifty members burn the Koran as his commemoration of the attacks. My question has always been, should anything be built at ground zero except a monument to those who died there? Of the 2752 people who died at the World Trade Center site, only about 1600 were positively identified, leaving “10,000 bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of dead,” according to CBS News . This means that the remains of the victims cannot be separated from the site. They are now part of the soil, concrete, dust, and physical material present at the location, meaning the only appropriate building that should be allowed there is a monument. N...

The Way of Chuang Tzu By Thomas Merton New Directions, $11.95 paper ISBN: 978-0-8112-1851-1 What does it mean to listen? His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, writes in a tribute to Thomas Merton , well known Trappist monk, Catholic philosopher and author of The Way of Chuang Tzu , that the qualities of hearing included study, contemplation, thinking about the teachings, and meditation. Thomas Merton did all of these things. Merton is best known for his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain . He was a prolific writer, composing more than seventy books on philosophy, social justice, war and peace, and the spiritual life. Born in 1915 in France to a Quaker mother and an artist father, Merton lost his mother early on from cancer. His father moved in and out of young Thomas’ life, leaving him in the custody of family members and boarding schools. He learned quite early on to fend for himself. Merton was an inconsistently religious person in his early life. At one point, he even professed to be...

I have taught Marge Piercy’s poem for many years to my ninth grade students. I think it speaks to the sentiments of this end-of-summer, American holiday. I hope in the months ahead, many unemployed Americans find “work that is real.” The photograph above of American journalist H. L. Mencken at his writing desk is taken from a Wall Street Journal article on a new collection of his essays and criticism. The copyright belongs to Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. To be of use By Marge Piercy The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who subm...

So it begins, another school year, and for the first time in more than two decades, I’m not there. In June, I was quite startled to discover my job being advertised on a teacher employment website. Fifteen years at the school, and the administration did not have the decency to tell me face to face that I would not be asked back. No reason was given when I confronted the powers that be, because as the vice principal told me, “It’s a one year contract and we do not have to give a reason for non-renewal.” Okay. My suspicion is that after fifteen years, the financially-troubled school wanted to divest itself of my salary. A clearly clueless vice principal and school board were icing on the cake. It was time for a change. I have been steadily employed since freshman year of high school. I paid my own tuition for my Catholic secondary education and my university degree. For my high school, I picked up trash around campus in the morning before school, shelved books in the library, and taught...