Category Archives: Education

Just a joke among Friends

Posted on March 30, 2018 by hessd

In the New York Times on March 23, Ginia Bellafante wrote about a firing at Friends Seminary, a private school in Lower Manhattan. The story she tells isn’t as interesting as it would have been had it not come in … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Living My Life, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Really bad political arguments

Posted on August 16, 2017 by hessd

In his column of August 12, which is an important contribution to today’s debates, Frank Bruni introduces Professor Mark Lilla, of Columbia University. Lilla comments that “classroom conversations that once might have begun, I think A, and here is my … Continue reading →

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When fathers are teachers

Posted on June 5, 2016 by hessd

I’ve decided this year to celebrate my experiences of being a father. Not all of them deserve to be celebrated, of course. I still regret the time I punished one of my kids for an offense another kid later confessed … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Living My Life, Political Psychology | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Authoritarianism III

Posted on May 28, 2016 by hessd

I set the table for myself this time. Here is how I ended the previous post—number two in this set of three. But by far my most vivid contact with these dilemmas has not come as a person, but as … Continue reading →

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Angry voters are stupid voters

Posted on April 13, 2016 by hessd

That’s the thesis for today. I have a story to tell you—one of my very few polished performances as a teacher. [1] And there is some throat clearing to be done, 2016 being a presidential year and one of the … Continue reading →

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Wheaton College: Conduct Unbecoming an Evangelical

Posted on December 30, 2015 by hessd

Wheaton College has recently disciplined a political science professor for saying something that embarrassed them. Since the handiest charge is that she has violated her doctrinal commitments, that is the charge they used, but that is not what she has … Continue reading →

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Two Professors in Narnia

Posted on November 14, 2015 by hessd

There are two. In the seven volumes of the Chronicles of Narnia, there are two professors.  They are both good guys. [1]  They appear in the first two books about Narnia, C. S. Lewis’s “Middle Earth,” and then not again … Continue reading →

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Only St. Peter Controls the Copier Codes

Posted on June 11, 2014 by hessd

According to Matthew’s account of the transaction, Jesus gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven (see Chapter 16).  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that Bowdoin College has disabled the keys given to the Bowdoin Christian … Continue reading →

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College Recruiting and Sexual Abuse

Posted on May 17, 2014 by hessd

This is probably one of those essays I will eventually wish I had written and not posted.  I take a little courage from the experience of Hannah Arendt who wrote about the trial of Adolph Eichmann and called it “the … Continue reading →

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What to wear to the commons

Posted on April 2, 2014 by hessd

  “Nobody washes a rental car,” runs an oft-repeated conservative lament. “Farmers don’t prevent their cattle from overgrazing and killing the commons” runs an oft-repeated liberal lament. You can’t exactly say either of these is false, but I think we … Continue reading →

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