Whenever I ride Amtrak, I head directly for what is called the Quiet Car. It is the one car on each Amtrak train where cell phone usage is prohibited and only quiet conversations are allowed.... Read More »

Working just two blocks from the United Nations made this past week’s gathering of world leaders a decidedly local affair. Demonstrators draped in the Iranian flag chatted in the pizza line.... Read More »

I am reading a book, Lighting Their Fires:  Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World, written by an award winning public school teacher, Rafe Esquith. He also... Read More »

“America is re-learning how to wash its hands,” observed one reporter on a television segment on the possible impending outbreak of H1N1 virus cases in schools this autumn. As the school... Read More »

It is a truism that good teachers don’t know all the answers, but they know where or how to find them. We try to do the same here at NAES, particularly when those uniquely “Episcopal... Read More »

In the continuing rhythm of each school year, August finds administrators planning for the return of faculty and staff, followed quickly by the arrival of students and parents. One of the things I... Read More »

In her sermon at the closing Eucharist of the General Convention in Anaheim CA, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori spoke in tribute to the reconciling temper of William White, Bishop of... Read More »

On June 19, I attended a Eucharist in observance of World Refugee Day officiated by the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. It was a moving... Read More »

No matter what one’s leadership style may be, nor how one handles discipline in a school, it is hard not to feel for Suzanne Lukas, Superintendent of Bonny Eagle School District in Maine. At... Read More »

In the last posting of The Commons, Laura Walker wrote of the joys of summer reading. Taking her advice in stride, I recently took up Dan Heischman’s newly published Good Influence: Teaching... Read More »