Founded 1983: Liberal Mindset; Conservative Morality

April 1, 2026

The Funeral of Handwriting: What We Lose When the Hand Stops Moving

In 2010, the Common Core State Standards Initiative dropped cursive instruction from its recommended curriculum. The decision arrived without ceremony. No public debate, no period of mourning, no recognition that a cognitive practice stretching back to the Sumerian reed stylus was being retired from American education. Forty-one states adopted the standards. Cursive, along with its slower sibling manuscript handwriting, began its institutional death.

Continue reading → The Funeral of Handwriting: What We Lose When the Hand Stops Moving

July 16, 2013

Why People Hate Teachers

As a teacher and a lifelong student, I have always been wary of those who choose to aggressively use a blue editor pencil to belittle an author, or a teacher who wields a red pen like a cudgel to punish a student writing effort. U.S. Representative Mark Takano is a teacher who has, unfortunately, proven himself to be in the latter category as a pedantic wonk who ruins the idea teaching to learn by making a mockery of the important and real process of revision.

Here’s what Rep. Takano said on his Tumblr account — as he tried to explain his overzealous political persecution of the other side of the aisle — and he oddly starts his defense with an incomplete sentence:

A draft letter by Republican members to Speaker Boehner is circulating congress looking for cosigners. I thought I’d offer my edits to the author before they submitted their final version… Still not signing it.