Can we ever put this issue to rest? — For all the years I spent teaching and all the years I spend in school myself, I don’t think I ever heard a kid say “I can’t wait to get home to do my homework.” There is a reason for that. I don’t know who came up with the idea…

You be the judge — The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that persons arrested cannot be given “excessive bail.” The intent of this amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights, is to ensure people who are arrested are able to get out of prison so they can adequately prepare their defense. …

Shedding the snakeskin of adulthood — There is something remarkable about turning 65. Sometimes it appears before me like a threshold to a new era. Other times it looks more like a portal to a new dimension. Still other times it resembles a black hole leading to who-knows-where. In a few short weeks, I will be…

Engaging in grammatical guerrilla warfare — I am an English teacher, and I am helping to destroy the English language. As an English teacher of 36 years, this was not an easy thing for me to come forward about. We are supposed to be ferreting out unneeded commas, circling misplaced apostrophes, and knocking down dangling participles…

I read this in the news this evening — If you have taught for any length of time, you begin to realize that people who lead school districts all start to sound the same after a while. It doesn’t matter whether these people work at the building level, the district level, or at the state Department of Education. They…

The cultural minefield of language — In the old days, it was called Black English. In 1973, African American social psychologist Dr. Robert Williams labeled it “Ebonics.” That name stuck, and for years this was the “correct” term to use. Today, what was once Black English or Ebonics is now referred to as African American Vernacular…

The silly way we adorn and decorate our names with letters and abbreviations When I first began my teaching career, one of the more difficult things I had to adjust to was being called “Mr. Egelkrout.” No one ever called me that before unless I was in trouble, and in…

None of my supervisors ever knew this about me either, I think — This is my confession. I was not a model student when I was in school. Most people I know who went into teaching were. They were the teacher’s pets. They were the smiling faces that sat in the front of the classroom. They got good grades and never got sent…

The story of the fighting priest of Milwaukee — Most people recognize the big names in the civil rights movement. Just about everyone knows of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Micky Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney. Perhaps not quite as well known but still known by a lot of people are Medgar Evers, Fannie…