Thomas Education professional notes

Starting the Thomas Education professional blog, intended for our notes about teaching and learning, academic subject areas, international schooling, and political and cultural observations. We invite comments to this part of our Professional Learning Network.

Introductions:
Jeffrey "JT" Thomas has lived a global upbringing and professional life, starting nursery school in France, graduating from AIS high school in Israel, student-teaching in Japan, working in international publishing systems in Helsinki and Prague, then teaching in India, Saudi Arabia, and Korea, while making technology work well for people and preparing students for future success.

Barbara Ogden Thomas grew up all around the US, and taught public school in Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, and New York, then worked also in Europe, India, Saudi Arabia, and Korea. She currently enjoys teaching first grade and helping Third Culture Kids make successful transitions.

Comments

Kite Runner is with us again

Six or so years ago, I taught The Kite Runner to three successive sets of tenth-graders, and marveled at the effect the novel had on me and on these adolescents. That age is a marvelous time for a humanities teacher, as we see callous children grow out of their self-centered cocoons and flex their world-empathic feelers. They grow into the world outside them and realize they truly have agency -- or will have agency and responsibility for human actions. Amir, the main protagonist of Kite Runner is so identifiable with those adolescents learning to take responsibility for their callous actions. And of course we think of Kite Runner now that Afghanistan once again plunges into Taliban rule -- we particularly worry about the fate of the Hazara (news stories already cite random executions of Hazara men). We can only wring hands and pray that the Taliban will have to adapt and tolerate more than they did before -- but I am not optimistic. ...

Review: Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World

Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World by James Carroll My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fascinating comprehensive worldview, with Jesuitical logic in a broad sweep that links religion in a circular way to violence and the solution to violence. The author shows a great command of history and religion, with extensive endnotes to support or expand upon most of his claims; however, some sweeping indictments will certainly be resisted by the more fundamentalist People Of The Book (that is, the Abrahamic religions). A core symbolic thread is Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac on Mt.Moriah, the supposed site later called Jerusalem -- the author deftly cites that scene throughout the many centuries since the original event, demonstrating the human tendency to misinterpret that near-sacrifice in order to rationalize our own tendency to violence and scapegoating. I started the book in audio form, but found it unlistenable -- the author's c...

Review: The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917

The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917 by Philip D. Zelikow My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

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