Essays

I write about Education, Public Policy, and other things too.

Classical Education

In 2012, I began my first teaching job: 8th grade English at Pericles School, a Classical Christian private school. I was nervous — I wasn’t sure I’d fit in at a private school — but I had no idea what I was actually signing up for.

Classic literature sitting on the shelf

Wisdom & Virtue

In 2012, I began working in Classical Christian Education. Over the next four years, I learned this was a system designed to protect white supremacy.

A monkey looking surprised

Good Man, Speaking Well

Classical Education claims to teach students to be the “good man, speaking well.” It’s supposed to speak to their focus on rhetoric and persuasion, but beneath this is a system that teaches science denial and discrimination against LGBTQ people.

Progressive Education

After leaving Pericles School, I went to teach in a public high school. Initially, it seemed like the answer to all my criticisms of Classical Education. But the longer I was there, the more uncomfortable with schooling I became.

A photograph of an old schoolhouse classroom, hanging crooked on the wall

Teachers Are Not the Heroes

A power imbalance exists between teachers and students, working in the adults favor and against the kids. A true social justice teaching must address this

A copy of Bernard Malamud's "The Natural" next to a baseball

That Baseball Study

In 1988, the so-called “Baseball Study” was published, and ever since then, it’s been used to justify highly-structured, authoritative classrooms. But what does the Baseball Study actually say, and does it even matter?

Hands pointing towards a laptop computer

Remote Learning Can Work, We’re Just Doing it Wrong

It seems almost universally agreed-upon that the pandemic-induced experiment in virtual schooling was a failure, that students need an in-person experience to learn. This is wrong — the problem wasn’t the platform, but the pedagogy.