I just finished Mary Higgins Clark’s memoir. Hers is a name you see everywhere, books, TV movies and on the big screen. The memoir is a fast read, a fascinating peek into the world that shaped this master storyteller and some excellent insights on just plain living.
“When a child comes to you wanting to share something he or she has written of sketched, be generous with our praise. If it’s a written piece, don’t talk about the spelling or the penmanship; look for creativity and applaud it. The flame of inspiration needs to be encouraged. Put a glass around that …read more

Neglect. Drugs. Abuse. Molestation.
Where do you go when those four words describe your parents and your home life?
Where do you sleep; what do you eat?
When you’re cold and hungry you do what it takes to survive, including stealing and selling whatever you can find to sell—including yourself.
And these kids are as young as 10 years old.
The NT Times ran a two-part series called Running in the Shadows about teen runaways. It should be required reading for every American (part 1 and part 2).
Children on Their Own
This is the first of two articles on the growing number of young runaways in …read more

Monday Slacker Manager wrote that people quit managers, not companies; I took that further in my Tuesday post saying that

Adequate managers manage employees.
Good managers manage people.
Great managers manage persons.

Marvin commented that this also applied to families, saying, “It was a great reminder that people don’t leave families, they leave the leaders of that family. … Adequate husbands/fathers have a wife and kids, Good husbands/fathers provide for their wife and kids, Great husbands/fathers learn the individual needs of their wife and kids and serve them accordingly.”
I …read more

Are kids learning anything from the economic meltdown?
Parents seem to be doing everything possible to avoid exposing their little darlings to a dose of reality.
Quotes in a December post highlighted parental efforts to fill Christmas wish lists and shelter their kids from the tanking economy.
A letter to Malcolm Berko asking for financial advice is another example of the lengths to which parents are willing to go, here is the key part.
“…Our son will graduate high school this May and we don’t have the savings to send him to the University of Florida, his chosen school where his two best …read more

CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday— anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.
An uncaring and ineffective professor does not even take into account the possibility that students are not properly prepared for their class. The students who are ill prepared will not have a chance.
So, you have to learn where your students are. What do they know? What do they not know? If a large number of them don’t know the shape …read more