short story of education

Biblioklept

Read “The School,” a short story by Donald Barthelme

“The School” by

Donald Barthelme

Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that … that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems … and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.

It wouldn’t have been so bad except that just a couple of weeks before the thing with the trees, the snakes all died. But I think that the snakes – well, the reason that the snakes kicked off was that … you remember, the boiler was shut off for four days because of the strike, and that was explicable. It was something you could explain to the kids because of the strike. I mean, none of their parents would let them cross the picket line and they knew there was a strike going on and what it meant. So when things got started up again and we found the snakes they weren’t too disturbed.

With the herb gardens it was probably a case of overwatering, and at least now they know not to overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens and some of them probably … you know, slipped them a little extra water when we weren’t looking. Or maybe … well, I don’t like to think about sabotage, although it did occur to us. I mean, it was something that crossed our minds. We were thinking that way probably because before that the gerbils had died, and the white mice had died, and the salamander … well, now they know not to carry them around in plastic bags.

Of course we expected the tropical fish to die, that was no surprise. Those numbers, you look at them crooked and they’re belly-up on the surface. But the lesson plan called for a tropical fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do, it happens every year, you just have to hurry past it.

We weren’t even supposed to have a puppy.

We weren’t even supposed to have one, it was just a puppy the Murdoch girl found under a Gristede’s truck one day and she was afraid the truck would run over it when the driver had finished making his delivery, so she stuck it in her knapsack and brought it to the school with her. So we had this puppy. As soon as I saw the puppy I thought, Oh Christ, I bet it will live for about two weeks and then… And that’s what it did. It wasn’t supposed to be in the classroom at all, there’s some kind of regulation about it, but you can’t tell them they can’t have a puppy when the puppy is already there, right in front of them, running around on the floor and yap yap yapping. They named it Edgar – that is, they named it after me. They had a lot of fun running after it and yelling, “Here, Edgar! Nice Edgar!” Then they’d laugh like hell. They enjoyed the ambiguity. I enjoyed it myself. I don’t mind being kidded. They made a little house for it in the supply closet and all that. I don’t know what it died of. Distemper, I guess. It probably hadn’t had any shots. I got it out of there before the kids got to school. I checked the supply closet each morning, routinely, because I knew what was going to happen. I gave it to the custodian.

And then there was this Korean orphan that the class adopted through the Help the Children program, all the kids brought in a quarter a month, that was the idea. It was an unfortunate thing, the kid’s name was Kim and maybe we adopted him too late or something. The cause of death was not stated in the letter we got, they suggested we adopt another child instead and sent us some interesting case histories, but we didn’t have the heart. The class took it pretty hard, they began (I think, nobody ever said anything to me directly) to feel that maybe there was something wrong with the school. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the school, particularly, I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. It was just a run of bad luck. We had an extraordinary number of parents passing away, for instance. There were I think two heart attacks and two suicides, one drowning, and four killed together in a car accident. One stroke. And we had the usual heavy mortality rate among the grandparents, or maybe it was heavier this year, it seemed so. And finally the tragedy.

The tragedy occurred when Matthew Wein and Tony Mavrogordo were playing over where they’re excavating for the new federal office building. There were all these big wooden beams stacked, you know, at the edge of the excavation. There’s a court case coming out of that, the parents are claiming that the beams were poorly stacked. I don’t know what’s true and what’s not. It’s been a strange year.

I forgot to mention Billy Brandt’s father who was knifed fatally when he grappled with a masked intruder in his home.

One day, we had a discussion in class. They asked me, where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? And I said, I don’t know, I don’t know. And they said, who knows? and I said, nobody knows. And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life. Then they said, but isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of – I said, yes, maybe. They said, we don’t like it. I said, that’s sound. They said, it’s a bloody shame! I said, it is. They said, will you make love now with Helen (our teaching assistant) so that we can see how it is done? We know you like Helen. I do like Helen but I said that I would not. We’ve heard so much about it, they said, but we’ve never seen it. I said I would be fired and that it was never, or almost never, done as a demonstration. Helen looked out the window. They said, please, please make love with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened.

I said that they shouldn’t be frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere. Helen came and embraced me. I kissed her a few times on the brow. We held each other. The children were excited. Then there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly.

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5 thoughts on “Read “The School,” a short story by Donald Barthelme”

The paragraph about the Korean orphan appears to be doubled. A cut and paste accident, browser issues, or some subtle joke? :-)

Great story. Should the gerbil be exerting itself though? Perhaps the kids should open the door. Maybe that’s what killed the others… over-exertion.

what is gerbil?

[…] Barthelme’s short story “The School” recounts a series of classroom lessons that end with the deaths of plants, and animals—parents […]

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Tiny Teaching Stories: The Powerful Moments of Your Lives, Distilled

Your lives as teachers are packed with powerful moments: moments of triumph, frustration, absurdity, joy, revelation, and hilarity. We want to hear about those moments. We’re asking teachers to distill an experience that was powerful for them into no more than 100 words. Below are some of the stories they’ve shared.

This project was inspired by, but is not affiliated with, The New York Times’ Tiny Love Stories .

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Short Kid Stories

Never be short of short kid stories.

Right to Education

By anish vedsen.

Once upon a time, a girl named Rima lived in Garden city, Bangalore. She was a lively child who loved playing, studying, writing short stories, dancing, and singing. She was a bright student of the Indian International School.

One day her father got some work in their native village; Rima was pleased to hear the news. She convinced her father to accompany him on the trip. It was a matter of two days, so her father agreed. She packed her luggage and was very excited to visit their village.

When she reached there, she saw the kaccha houses / temporary houses made of mud or clay. She felt the quietness of village life. There were areas full of greenery where one could breathe fresh air. Cattle were moving around, and farmers were working in the field. Children were playing and enjoying themselves. Then she saw some boys going to a village school and girls going to farms with sharp knives. It was weird to her. She thought, “Why are girls not going to school?”

She followed one girl named Bindra to the farm. Rima asked her, “Hi, why are you not going to school?”

Bindra said, ” I never went to school. My brother goes to school, and I help my parents on the farm.” Her answer shocked Rima.

Then she told Bindra that according to the Constitution of India, “free and compulsory education for the age group of six to fourteen years is the Fundamental Right of all children.”

Ahe continued, “So it would help if you went to school, and afterwards you can help your parents. And every citizen of India is treated as equal, and there is no difference between boys and girls. Governments have created equal opportunities for everyone. So, we should follow it.”

These words touched Bindra because she also wanted to study like her brother. So she promised that henceforth she would also go to school to fulfil her dreams and be a strength for her parents.

The moral of the story is that education gives us identity and helps us make the right decisions.

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11 amazing education stories from 2018

By Kristen Doerer, Alexander Russo | Dec 19, 2018 | The Grade

From a crowded field of great education journalism, we single out the best of the best for 2018.

By Alexander Russo and Kristen Doerer

Rounding up the best education stories of the year is an annual delight – an early holiday gift featuring 11 amazing pieces of education journalism across nine categories.

This is our third year doing it. But it never gets any easier to whittle down so many impressive pieces of journalism into a manageable list. This year especially required more ruthlessness than we would have liked. There was so much excellent education journalism about important topics like school inequality, inadequate classroom instruction, school safety fears, college completion, federal education policy, and immigration.

As in the past, the emphasis is on journalism that’s compelling, memorable, deeply reported, and nuanced. Some selections have had an immediate, real-world impact. Others have shaped public understanding and generated a conversation that lasted long after they were first published.

So what follows here is a highly opinionated, selective, and in some cases quirky list. (If you want a more inclusive list, check out our “ Best Education Journalism of the Week ” archive for 2018, which contains tons more great pieces.)

Take a look and let us know what you think. What did we miss? What did we get right?

A Shadow System Feeds Segregation in New York City Schools The New York Times

Racially diverse and politically progressive, New York City nonetheless permits many of its middle and high schools to pre-screen students for grades and test scores, systematically excluding African-American and Latino students from the top-scoring schools in the city. That’s what makes Elizabeth Harris and Winnie Hu’s New York Times report, A Shadow System Feeds Segregation in New York City Schools , such a powerful story. It lays bare the scope and depth of a problem that is too easily dismissed as someone else’s concern or fault. Harris and Hu’s scathing examination of how New York City also highlights parents’ voices – too often missing – who express understandable frustration over a system that gives the edge to families that can pay for tutoring or a consultant. With one in five middle and high schools screening students for grades and test scores, write Harris and Hu, “No other city in the country screens students for as many schools as New York.”

Over the past few years, students from Louisiana’s TM Landry school – many of them African-American – have gained admission to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Videos of them opening their acceptance emails have gone viral on social media and been featured on cable news. But the reality of these students’ experiences was much grimmer, as reported in the blockbuster New York Times story, Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here’s the Reality. In it, reporters Erica Green and Katie Benner expose the fairy tale story of the school’s magical success. Producing the story required deep reporting and a keen nose for bullshit. The reporters interviewed 46 sources – parents, students, former teachers, and the police – examined incorrect transcripts, college applications, and court documents detailing physical abuse against students. The writing is powerful, and the stories told by parents and students are chilling.

Honorable mentions: Rural Alabama charter opens as first integrated school in Sumter County (Trish Crain for AL.com), Drawing school zones to make classrooms less segregated (Alvin Chang for Vox), Kicked Out (Avi Wolfman-Arent for WHYY Philadelphia), and Charlottesville’s Other Jim Crow Legacy (Erica Green for the New York Times & Annie Waldman for ProPublica).

Further reading: New York Times story exposes school fraud and media credulity

INSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Research shows that teaching kids through explicit instruction in how written language works is a key part of helping them learn to read, but that’s not how most American schools are doing it. The result is a large number of students who are not confident readers — and too many that can’t read at all. This is the tragedy revealed by the APM Reports documentary Hard Words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read? Reported by senior correspondent Emily Hanford, the hour-long segment discusses pedagogy and research but focuses the debate in the stories of memorable characters such as one district official’s efforts to raise students’ reading scores and some education school professors’ resistance to phonics in the University of Mississippi’s teaching program. But the main reason we love Hard Words so much is that it addresses such an important and widespread problem, and has rekindled an important conversation that had gone quiet for too long.

Further reading: Hard reporting: Why reading went under the radar for so long

If you missed it in the deluge of back-to-school stories this fall, Sara Mosle’s New York Times Magazine feature story, Can Good Teaching Be Taught? is well worth going back to read. The story is focused on the educators at an Atlanta elementary school where they are trying to improve student achievement by helping teachers get better at classroom instruction. The characters are carefully drawn. The issues and the stakes are clear. Mosle also provides one of the best recapitulations of the power and the limits of the school reform movement in recent memory: “There was something worse than no reform, it turned out: unsuccessful reform.”

Honorable mentions: Julie Washington’s Quest to Get Schools to Respect African-American English (William Brennan for The Atlantic), What San Diego High School Faculty Learned After a Year of Personalized Learning (Michael Elsen-Rooney for the Hechinger Report), and Age 16 and struggling to read (Adeshina Emmanuel for Chalkbeat Chicago).

SCHOOL SAFETY

Following a spate of highly publicized incidents, school districts around the country are frantically working to prevent the next school shooting. No surprise that some of their efforts are misguided or excessive. In Bethany Barnes’ masterful narrative, Targeted: A Family and the Quest to Stop the Next School Shooter , school officials suspect a high school student of being a potential school shooter and refer him for further screening. Published in The Oregonian, the story’s opening is chilling: “Like almost every parent who sends a child to a school in America these days, Mark feared the next school shooting.” Barnes’ inside look into the teenage boy’s home is an amazing feat of building trust and humanizing her characters’ experiences.

Honorable mentions: The School Shootings That Weren’t (Anya Kamenetz, Alexis Arnold, and Emily Cardinali for NPR), Inside the $3 Billion School Security Industry (Mark Keierleber for The 74), and School shootings have fueled a $2.7 billion school safety industry (John Woodrow Cox and Steven Rich for the Washington Post).

Further reading: How Bethany Barnes became a star education reporter

THE PARKLAND TRAGEDY

If you’ve been following the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school shooting, you’ve probably figured out that what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that day was tragic not only because of the senseless deaths of so many students and teachers but also because there were so many missed warning signs, procedural fails, and operational meltdowns. And you’ve probably been reading a lot of Scott Travis stories in the Sun Sentinel. There are lots of them. And they’re good. Among the best examples are one piece Travis wrote about how the school district was overconfident about the shooter’s chances of thriving, School officials once predicted Parkland shooter could be ‘model student’ , and another about how the school was overly casual about its disciplinary procedures, Schools’ culture of tolerance lets students slide .

Honorable mentions: Parkland shooter always in trouble, never expelled. (Carol Marbin Miller & Kyra Gurney for the Miami Herald), Stoneman Douglas resource officer remains haunted by massacre. (Eli Saslow for the Washington Post), A Broken Trust (Benjamin Herold for EdWeek), and Stoneman Douglas Shooter Was Assigned To Controversial Broward Discipline Program, Officials Now Say (Jessica Bakeman for WLRN).

Further reading: Misleading coverage of school shootings in 2018

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Our schools’ struggle to provide appropriate educational services for students with disabilities is a long and frustrating one, often featuring inadequate resources, under-trained and poorly supervised teachers, low expectations, and racial bias. That’s a big part of what makes Rachel Aviv’s New Yorker story, Georgia’s Separate and Unequal Special-Education System , such a powerful story. Following Seth and his mother Latoya, Aviv exposes a special-education system that keeps kids – disproportionately black boys – with special needs separate from their peers and struggles to provide them with adequate services. But Aviv’s work is more than just an expose. She dives deep into the many challenges Seth and Lotoya face, and the resulting story pulls in the reader and makes you feel for all involved: Seth who is so tortured by the system he starts to introduce himself as “bad”; his mother who is desperately fighting to get him the education he deserves; and the teachers who lacked the support and training needed and treat Seth terribly.

Honorable mentions: For a Teen with Autism, Being Different Was Seen as Being Dangerous (David Desroches for Connecticut Public Radio), and Back of the Class (Susannah Frame and Taylor Mirfendereski for KING5).

Further reading: From cheating scandals to broken schools, how New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv tells education stories

STUDENT MOBILITY

It’s increasingly well-known that student mobility among different schools makes success harder for both teachers and students. And there were several great looks at the impact of housing instability and student transience in 2018. But the best among them was Lessons Lost , the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series by Erin Richards that showed how few students have enough stability in their lives to attend the same school for multiple years. The problem is probably more dramatic than most of us imagine. In one school, only eight of the 47 third graders remained by eighth grade, creating enormous continuity and engagement challenges. The series also features a national overview showing that half the states don’t track or post data on student transience . And those states that do track numbers do so differently, making comparisons all but impossible.

Honorable mentions: The children of 8B: One classroom, 31 journeys, and the reason it’s so hard to fix Detroit’s schools (Erin Einhorn for Chalkbeat Detroit), Reading, Writing, Evicted (Bethany Barnes for The Oregonian), How Neighborhoods Shape Children for Life (Emily Badger and Quatrong Bui for the New York Times), and Putting Puerto Rico’s Schools Back on Track (Andrew Ujifusa for EdWeek).

THE YEAR OF THE TEACHER

The U. S. Department of Education’s troubled TEACH Grant program has been converting grants intended to encourage teachers who work in high-need areas into loans that teachers have to pay back. NPR reporter and editor Cory Turner spent much of the past year uncovering this story, with Chris Arnold and others. Their coverage led 19 U.S. senators to send a letter to DeVos calling for immediate action and resulted in renewed promises from the USDE to help those teachers wrongly hit with unexpected debts. Thoughtful, nose-to-the-grindstone reporting can make a real difference. Read the entire series here: The Trouble with TEACH Grants .

Honorable mentions: Midterms test the durability of the teacher uprising (Moriah Balingit for the Washington Post), Fighting Poverty, Drugs, and Even Violence, All on a Teacher’s Salary ( Dana Goldstein for the NYT), and An Addict Dies in a School Restroom. He Was a Teacher. (Michael Wilson for the New York Times).

EDUCATING IMMIGRANT, REFUGEE, and ELL STUDENTS

A Betrayal , published in New York Magazine and ProPublica, is an enthralling and heart-wrenching story about a teenage boy who escaped MS-13 in El Salvador only to be pulled back into the violent gang in a Long Island high school. In the U.S., the teen makes a deal with the police and begins informing on the gang with the expectation the police would help him get out of it. Instead, ICE begins a deportation case against him, jailing him alongside those he informed on. And the school system played a role. Hannah Dreier spent months navigating a school wary of press coverage, gaining the trust of her sources, and examining hundreds of messages. She then tied her subject’s suspenseful story to a broader one on immigration in the US, ICE, and school policy.

Honorable mentions: In a Migrant Shelter Classroom, ‘It’s Always Like the First Day of School’ (Dana Goldstein and Manny Fernandez for the NYT), Education for immigrants: One person’s journey to enroll in higher education (Mike Elsen-Rooney for the Indianapolis Star), and Turning rampant anti-Muslim bullying into teachable moments (Leila Fadel for NPR).

Further reading: Not just any high school story: How a ProPublica immigration reporter profiled a Long Island high school student trying to get out of MS-13

HIGHER EDUCATION

The story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) is full of students with big dreams but many obstacles, including among them the pathetic under-funding of the schools themselves. Casey Parks’ New Yorker feature story, A College Degree from an H.B.C.U., More than Fifteen Years in the Making , explores these issues through the experiences of Dorian Ford, a young mother from Louisiana who graduates high school underprepared for college-level work and then struggles mightily to take and pass classes while also raising two boys. Her challenges – among them finding working internet and the time to write papers – are interspersed with the long story of how the HBCU she attends, Grambling State, was historically starved of funding by the state. It’s an amazing read, even if you think you don’t care much about anything that’s not strictly about the K-12 system.

Honorable mentions: They Wanted Desegregation. They Settled for Money, and It’s About to Run Out (Adam Harris for The Chronicle of Higher Education), Education for All… Even a ‘Nazi’? (Greg Toppo for Inside Higher Ed), and Meet the New Mega-University (Goldie Blumenstyk for the Chronicle of Higher Education).

Further reading: Widening the lens: What makes Casey Parks’ New Yorker story so good

That’s our list. Think you can do better? Show us what you got.

Best education journalism of 2017

Best education journalism of 2016

Coming in January: Predictions and story recommendations for the new year, favorite bylines and outlets, and best practices for education journalists.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kristen Doerer

Alexander Russo

Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.

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The Grade provides independent analysis of media coverage of education, helping to promote and improve the quality of that coverage. The Grade publishes weekly columns, a free newsletter featuring timely media commentary, and an annual update on newsroom diversity in education journalism. While hosted by KappanOnline, editorial decisions are The Grade's. For questions or responses to content, please contact us at Alexander Russo or @alexanderrusso.

The Importance of Education

Grace had never received even one “A” in school.

When the 13-year-old girl arrived at Mercy Home, catching up in class was the furthest thing from her mind. She had long ago lost hope that she would ever be a good student. And why bother at this point? She kept getting promoted to the next grade even though she only received a grade besides “F” in subjects like physical education and art—and even then she was barely passing.

“I was never good in school,” she explained. “I didn’t see the point of doing homework or studying.”

She had been that way her whole life because no one had ever expected more of her.

Before Mercy Home, I never thought I would get a C in school, much less an A. I actually feel like I can succeed now.

Her mother had been taken away when she was only five years old. She had been sent to live with her aunt, who didn’t want Grace in the first place. Her aunt didn’t make much money and didn’t want to spend what little extra she did have at the time on Grace. She wanted to spend it on her own two children, Grace’s cousins.

And things weren’t any better at school. Her teachers couldn’t keep control over their classrooms, and the same troublemakers learned that they could disrupt class year after year. Eventually, Grace fell in with the “troublemakers”—and would stay out with them long into the evening, just so she wouldn’t have to go home.

“Things were so bad at home that I did anything to avoid going back there,” she said. “And I thought they were my friends. I thought they cared about me.”

Grace lived like this for almost a decade, never realizing she had deserved more love than what her family showed her.

But then, for the first time at 13, she was told she would have to be held back a grade. She probably would have dropped out—she had gotten to where she hardly bothered to go to school anyway.

But the teacher who told Grace she would have to repeat seventh grade said something to her she would never forget. She told Grace that she noticed she was actually really good in science.

Grace was amazed—no one had told her she seemed good at anything in school. The teacher went on to tell her that she could make up a few detention hours by sorting lab specimens. Grace realized she enjoyed the work a lot, and developed a rapport with the teacher—eventually telling her teacher about her troubles at home.

“It was a relief to finally tell someone about what was going on,” she said. “And my teacher actually seemed to care about my problems.”

The teacher knew from her parish about Mercy Home, and told Grace that it would be a stable place away from her difficult life with her aunt. It would also be a place where she could get away from her bad social habits.

Grace was very interested—and contacted our admissions department.

Since coming to Mercy Home, Grace has finally seen the importance of education. Now, not only does she have a safe place to live away from the strife with her aunt, she is finally bringing home report cards completely full of passing grades.

And, this semester, she finally brought home her first A: biology.

“Before Mercy Home, I never thought I would get a C in school, much less an A,” she said. “I actually feel like I can succeed now.”

Thank you for making possible wonderful transformations for children like Grace.

Education gives our kids the opportunity to build a brighter future. Your gift will help them get there.

Disclaimer: Because we care deeply about protecting our children’s privacy, the names and certain identifying details in this story have been changed.

Discover More

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April 18, 2024

From ‘Invisible’ Kid to Straight A Student

January 24, 2024

Youth Reflects on Experience at Mercy Home

December 6, 2023

Actually Your Story Gave Me Lot Of Encouragement I Love It

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From 1871 to 2021: A Short History of Education in the United States

In 1600s and 1700s America, prior to the first and second Industrial Revolutions, educational opportunity varied widely depending on region, race, gender, and social class.

Public education, common in New England, was class-based, and the working class received few benefits, if any. Instructional styles and the nature of the curriculum were locally determined. Teachers themselves were expected to be models of strict moral behavior.

By the mid-1800s, most states had accepted three basic assumptions governing public education: that schools should be free and supported by taxes, that teachers should be trained, and that children should be required to attend school.

The term “normal school” is based on the French école normale, a sixteenth-century model school with model classrooms where model teaching practices were taught to teacher candidates. In the United States, normal schools were developed and built primarily to train elementary-level teachers for the public schools.

The Normal School The term “normal school” is based on the French école normale , a sixteenth-century model school with model classrooms where model teaching practices were taught to teacher candidates. This was a laboratory school where children on both the primary or secondary levels were taught, and where their teachers, and the instructors of those teachers, learned together in the same building. This model was employed from the inception of the Buffalo Normal School , where the “School of Practice” inhabited the first floors of the teacher preparation academy. In testament to its effectiveness, the Campus School continued in the same tradition after the college was incorporated and relocated on the Elmwood campus.

Earlier normal schools were reserved for men in Europe for many years, as men were thought to have greater intellectual capacity for scholarship than women. This changed (fortunately) during the nineteenth century, when women were more successful as private tutors than were men.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, newly industrialized European economies needed a reliable, reproducible, and uniform work force. The preparation of teachers to accomplish this goal became ever more important. The process of instilling in future citizens the norms of moral behavior led to the creation of the first uniform, formalized national educational curriculum. Thus, “normal” schools were tasked with developing this new curriculum and the techniques through which teachers would communicate and model these ideas, behaviors, and values for students who, it was hoped, through formal education, might desire and seek a better quality of life.

In the United States, normal schools were developed and built primarily to train elementary-level teachers for the public schools. In 1823, Reverend Samuel Read Hall founded the first private normal school in the United States, the Columbian School in Concord, Vermont. The first public normal school in the United States was founded shortly thereafter in 1839 in Lexington, Massachusetts. Both public and private “normals” initially offered a two-year course beyond the secondary level, but by the twentieth century, teacher-training programs required a minimum of four years. By the 1930s most normal schools had become “teachers colleges,” and by the 1950s they had evolved into distinct academic departments or schools of education within universities.

The Buffalo Normal School Buffalo State was founded in 1871 as the Buffalo Normal School. It changed its name more often than it changed its building. It has been called the State Normal and Training School (1888–1927), the State Teachers College at Buffalo (1928–1946), the New York State College for Teachers at Buffalo (1946–1950), SUNY, New York State College for Teachers (1950–1951), the State University College for Teachers at Buffalo (1951–1959), the State University College of Education at Buffalo (1960–1961), and finally the State University College at Buffalo in 1962, or as we know it more succinctly, SUNY Buffalo State College.

As early as the 1800s, visionary teachers explored teaching people with disabilities. Thomas Galludet developed a method to educate the deaf and hearing impaired. Dr. Samuel Howe focused on teaching the visually impaired, creating books with large, raised letters to assist people with sight impairments to “read” with their fingers.

What Goes Around, Comes Around: What Is Good Teaching? Throughout most of post-Renaissance history, teachers were most often male scholars or clergymen who were the elite literates who had no formal training in “how” to teach the content in which they were most well-versed. Many accepted the tenet that “teachers were born , not made .” It was not until “pedagogy,” the “art and science of teaching,” attained a theoretical respectability that the training of educated individuals in the science of teaching was considered important.

While scholars of other natural and social sciences still debate the scholarship behind the “science” of teaching, even those who accept pedagogy as a science admit that there is reason to support one theory that people can be “born” with the predisposition to be a good teacher. Even today, while teacher education programs are held accountable by accreditors for “what” they teach teachers, the “dispositions of teaching” are widely debated, yet considered essential to assess the suitability of a teacher candidate to the complexities of the profession. Since the nineteenth century, however, pedagogy has attempted to define the minimal characteristics needed to qualify a person as a teacher. These have remained fairly constant as the bases for educator preparation programs across the country: knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of teaching methods, and practical experience in applying both are still the norm. The establishment of the “norms” of pedagogy and curriculum, hence the original name of “normal school” for teacher training institutions, recognized the social benefit and moral value of ensuring a quality education for all.

As with so many innovations and trends that swept the post-industrial world in the twentieth century, education, too, has experienced many changes. The names of the great educational theorists and reformers of the Progressive Era in education are known to all who know even a little about teaching and learning: Jean Piaget , Benjamin Bloom , Maria Montessori , Horace Mann , and John Dewey to name only a few.

As early as the 1800s, visionary teachers explored teaching people with disabilities. Thomas Galludet developed a method to educate the deaf and hearing impaired. He opened the Hartford School for the Deaf in Connecticut in 1817. Dr. Samuel Howe focused on teaching the visually impaired, creating books with large, raised letters to assist people with sight impairments to “read” with their fingers. Howe led the Perkins Institute, a school for the blind, in Boston. Such schools were usually boarding schools for students with disabilities. There are still residential schools such as St. Mary’s School for the Deaf in Buffalo, but as pedagogy for all children moved into the twentieth century, inclusive practice where children with disabilities were educated in classrooms with non-disabled peers yielded excellent results. This is the predominant pedagogy taught by our Exceptional Education faculty today.

As the reform movements in education throughout the twentieth century introduced ideas of equality, child-centered learning, assessment of learner achievement as a measure of good teaching, and other revolutionary ideas such as inquiry-based practice, educating the whole person, and assuring educational opportunities for all persons, so did the greater emphasis on preparing teachers to serve the children of the public, not just those of the elite.

This abridged version of events that affected teacher education throughout the twentieth century mirrors the incredible history of the country from WWI’s post-industrial explosion to the turbulent 1960s, when the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement dominated the political scene and schools became the proving ground for integration and Title IX enforcement of equality of opportunity. Segregation in schools went to the Supreme Court in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education. Following this monumental decision, schools began the slow process of desegregating schools, a process that, sadly, is still not yet achieved.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Sputnik generation’s worship of science gave rise to similarities in terminology between the preparation of teachers and the preparation of doctors. “Lab schools” and quantitative research using experimental and quasi-experimental designs to test reading and math programs and other curricular innovations were reminiscent of the experimental designs used in medical research. Student teaching was considered an “internship,” akin to the stages of practice doctors followed. Such terminology and parallels to medicine, however, fell out of vogue with a general disenchantment with science and positivism in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Interestingly, these parallels have resurfaced today as we refer to our model of educating teachers in “clinically rich settings.” We have even returned to “residency” programs, where teacher candidates are prepared entirely in the schools where they will eventually teach.

As schools became more and more essential to the post-industrial economy and the promotion of human rights for all, teaching became more and more regulated. By the end of the twentieth century, licensing requirements had stiffened considerably in public education, and salary and advancement often depended on the earning of advanced degrees and professional development in school-based settings. Even today, all programs in colleges and universities that prepare teachers must follow extensive and detailed guidelines established by the New York State Education Department that determine what must be included in such programs. Additions such as teaching to students with disabilities and teaching to English language learners are requirements that reflect the changing needs of classrooms.

As the world changed, so did the preparation of teachers. The assimilation of the normal school into colleges and universities marked the evolution of teaching as a profession, a steady recognition over the last 150 years that has allowed the teacher as scientist to explore how teaching and learning work in tandem and to suggest that pedagogy is dynamic and interactive with sociopolitical forces and that schools play a critical role in the democratic promotion of social justice.

Campus Schools and Alternative Classroom Organization During the ’60s and ’70s, new concepts of schooling such as multigrade classrooms and open-concept spaces, where students followed their own curiosity through project-based learning, were played out right here at Buffalo State in what was then the College Learning Lab (Campus School). Campus School shared many of the college’s resources and served as the clinical site for the preparation of teachers. School administration and teachers held joint appointments at the college and in the lab. Classrooms were visible through one-way glass, where teacher candidates could observe and review what they saw with the lab school teacher afterward. Participation in these classrooms was a requirement during the junior year. (I myself did my junior participation in a 5/6 open class there.)

However, as the SUNY colleges became less and less supported by New York State budgetary allocations, the Campus School was soon too expensive to staff and to maintain. The baby boom was over, and the population was shrinking. Job opportunities for the graduates of Buffalo State were rare. A 10-year cycle of teacher shortage and teacher over-supply continues to be a trend.

Standards and Norms In the 1980s, education in America once again turned to “norming,” but now the norms were not measuring one child against others; rather, each child was assessed as he or she approached the “national standards” that theoretically defined the knowledge and skills necessary for all to achieve.

Fearing America’s loss of stature as the technologically superior leader of the free world, A Nation at Risk , published in 1983, cast a dark shadow over teaching and schools for many years to come until its premises were largely disrupted. During the time after this report, however, being a teacher was not a popular career choice, and teaching as a profession was called into question.

By 1998, almost every state had defined or implemented academic standards for math and reading. Principals and teachers were judged; students were promoted or retained, and legislation was passed so that high school students would graduate or be denied a diploma based on whether or not they had met the standards, usually as measured by a criterion-referenced test.

In the 1980s, education in America once again turned to “norming,” but now the norms were not measuring one child against others; rather, each child was assessed as he or she approached the “national standards” that theoretically defined the knowledge and skills necessary for all to achieve.

The pressure to teach to a standards-based curriculum, to test all students in an effort to ensure equal education for all, led to some famous named policies of presidents and secretaries of education in the later twentieth century. National panels and political pundits returned to the roots of the “normal school” movement, urging colleges of teacher education to acquaint teacher candidates with the national educational standards known as Goals 2000 . The George H. W. Bush administration kicked off an education summit with the purpose of “righting the ship” since the shock of A Nation at Risk . Standards-based curriculum became a “teacher proof” system of ensuring that all children—no matter what their socioeconomic privilege—would be taught the same material. This “curriculum first” focus for school planning persisted through the Clinton administration with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the George W. Bush administration with No Child Left Behind , and the Obama administration with Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the accompanying federal funding called Race to the Top . Such packaged standards-based curriculum movements once again turned the public eye to a need to conform, achieve, and compete.

For teachers, the most important development from this pressure to teach to the standards was the controversial Common Core , a nationalized curriculum based on standards of education that were designed to give all students common experiences within a carefully constructed framework that would transcend race, gender, economics, region, and aptitude. So focused were the materials published on the Common Core that schools began to issue scripted materials to their teachers to ensure the same language was used in every classroom. Teacher autonomy was suppressed, and time for language arts and mathematics began to eclipse the study of science, social studies, art, music.

Now What? That takes us almost to today’s schools, where teachers are still accountable for helping student achieve the Common Core standards or more currently the National Standards. Enter the COVID pandemic. Full stop.

Curriculum, testing, conformity, and standards are out the window. The American parent can now “see into” the classroom and the teacher can likewise “see into” the American home. Two-dimensional, computer-assisted instruction replaced the dynamic interactive classroom where learning is socially constructed and facilitated by teachers who are skilled at classroom management, social-emotional learning, and project-based group work. Teacher candidates must now rely on their status as digital natives to engage and even entertain their students who now come to them as a collective of individuals framed on a computer screen rather than in a classroom of active bodies who engage with each other in myriad ways. Last year’s pedagogical challenges involved mastery of the 20-minute attention span, the teacher as entertainer added to the teacher as facilitator . Many of our teacher candidates learned more about themselves than they did about their students. Yet, predominately, stories of creativity, extraordinary uses of technology, and old-fashioned persistence and ingenuity were the new “norm” for the old Buffalo State Normal School.

There has been nothing “normal” about these last two years as the world learns to cope with a silent enemy. There will be no post-war recovery, no post-industrial reforms, no equity of opportunity in schools around the world. But there will be teaching. And there will be learning. And the Buffalo State Normal School will continue to prepare the highest quality practitioners whose bags of tricks grow ever-more flexible, driven by a world where all that is known doubles in just a few days. Pedagogy is still a science. Teaching is a science, but it is also a craft practiced by master craftsmen and women and learned by apprentices.

Ultimately, however, as even the earliest teacher educators knew, the art of teaching is that ephemeral quality that we cannot teach, but which we know when we see it at work, that makes the great teacher excel far beyond the competent teacher.

Teaching has been called the noblest profession. From our earliest roots as the Buffalo Normal School to the current challenges of post-COVID America, we have never changed our dedication to that conviction. We are still doing what the words of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai encourage us to do: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” That was and always will be the mission of Buffalo State, “the Teachers College.”

This article was contributed as part of a guest author series observing the 150th anniversary celebration of Buffalo State College. Campus authors who are interested in submitting articles or story ideas pertaining to the sesquicentennial are encouraged to contact the editor .

Wendy Paterson, ’75, ’76, Ph.D., dean of the School of Education, is an internationally recognized scholar in the areas of early literacy and reading, developmental and educational technology, and single parenting. She received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service in 1996.

Read other stories in the 150th anniversary guest author series:

Pomp, Pageantry Seize the Day in 1869 Normal School Cornerstone Laying

Transforming Lives for 150 Years: Memoir of a 1914 Graduate

Buffalo Normal School Held Opening Ceremony 150 Years Ago Today

New Buffalo Normal School Replaces Outgrown Original

The Grover Cleveland–E. H. Butler Letters at Buffalo State

Test Your College Knowledge with a Buffalo State Crossword Puzzle

Photo: Staff of the Record student newspaper, 1913 .

References:

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/teachereducationx92x1/chapter/education-reforms/

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school

https://britannica.com/topic/normal-school

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1216495.pdf

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Normal_school

http://reformmovements1800s.weebly.com/education.html

http://www.leaderinme.org/blog/history-of-education-the-united-states-in-a-nutshell/

Inclusive education stories from the field

Leonard Cheshire has a longstanding relationship with UNESCO, providing disability specific technical expertise and advice as a formal partner.

As we work together to continue our global efforts towards the Sustainable Development Goals, these stories demonstrate the importance of inclusive education programmes in creating opportunities for persons with disabilities. From the implementation of assistive technology devices, to supporting families and communities in understanding and appreciating disability, to providing educational and vocational opportunities for girls with disabilities, each story shows the value of disability inclusive projects in creating a more equal world for all.

Alice’s quest for education despite life challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic

Alice Atieno Ouma is 18 years old and lives with her husband and child in Wakesi village, Muhoroni Sub-County, Kisumu County, Kenya. Alice is currently a beneficiary of the Education for Life project, where she’s been attending numeracy, literacy and life skills classes since she joined in February 2020. She has an intellectual disability and has shown herself to be an active and dedicated learner in class.

Alice attended lower primary school but dropped out due to family challenges and the lack of a supportive school environment. She was sent to Nairobi, Kenya where she did menial work for a few years. She later left and went back home and eventually got married. Alice heard about the Education for Life project through a community event organised by the project. She went to the catch-up centre where she completed project assessments and was later admitted into the programme.

“When they called that I had been chosen to be one of the 30 girls in our catch up centre I was very excited for the opportunity! I have been attending classes before we closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Alice explained.

Alice enjoys going to the centre and has made lots of friends. Spending three hours, three days of the week in the centre has really helped her. “What I like most about being here is that my fellow girls are very kind to me and the teacher always says when we are at the centre we are a big family,” Alice said.

Alice’s life has changed a lot because of the project. First, her literacy levels have improved. She also does well in mathematics, her favourite subject. Through the life skills and mentorship sessions that she attends, her self-confidence has also improved. She vividly remembers a session where they were chatting about reproductive health and the mentor took them practically through using a sanitary towel step by step.

“It was a very fun session. We all laughed and learned a lot because who thought putting on a sanitary towel could be talked about openly!”

Life has improved for both Alice and her family, and her husband has been encouraging her throughout her studies. Her husband has also learned a lot about how to support her and understand her better through a workshop organised by the project for households of girls with disabilities. They were taught how to appreciate and support those living with disabilities.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic uncertainty in the community. It has been a difficult time for Alice and her family. Her husband works at a sugar cane farm as a casual labourer and his income has not been consistent. To mitigate this, and have additional income in the family, she has been washing clothes for her neighbours during her free time when she is not at the centre.

When the centre was closed after the COVID-19 pandemic first hit Kenya, the project adapted by providing the Educator Facilitators and Mentors with airtime to reach out to the girls every week. They provided psychosocial support and offered some learning by providing small assignments on phones to keep the girls active. Additionally, Alice was provided with workbooks (Mathematics, English, and Kiswahili) to aid her to study at home. She was also provided with a dignity kit (sanitary towels, soap, underwear, etc). These items were very useful and relieved her of the stress of having to source them for herself.

With learning now resuming at the catch up centre, Alice is optimistic about her future. She hopes one day to own her beauty salon. She is sure that with the support of the project’s role models and career guidance sessions she will choose the right transition pathway to help her achieve her goals.

With all the efforts that the project has made, Alice shared that there is more that can be done to support girls with disabilities. This includes continuous sensitization of the community to be more supportive of girls like her, improvement of the teaching and learning materials in the centres and encouragement and additional training for the teachers that support them.

“This is the best project to have ever come in my community,” Alice said. “It has been helpful to girls like me. I am very grateful and I hope other girls like me will benefit from this great initiative.”

Emmanuel’s Story – Finding his future

Emmanuel is a 14 year old boy from Kizimba Village, Agwingiri Parish, Agwingiri Sub County in Amolatar district in Uganda. He is the ninth born in a family of ten. Both he and two of his sisters have hearing and speech impairments.

When Emmanuel was ten years old his father died. His mother couldn’t afford to keep him in a school for disabled children and believed he wouldn’t cope in a mainstream school.

So, Emmanuel went to live with a friend of his brother’s in Kampala. The friend became Emmanuel’s guardian and provided funding for him to go to school again. However, during the third year of his education in Kampala, his guardian passed away and Emmanuel had to go back to Kizimba village to live with his mother.

Back in the village, his mother was still unable to pay for him to attend school. She said: “Emmanuel has been very lonely at home with no friends since most children in the community attend school.”

For a while, Emmanuel had no choice but to stay at home and help out with domestic chores. But Emmanuel’s chance to go back to school came when the team from Leonard Cheshire’s Inclusive Education project in Amolatar District in Northern Uganda came to his local area. Their aim was to teach the community about disability and reduce the stigma around it, as well as identify children that could be supported by the project.

Emmanuel registered with the project, and soon after was enrolled at Omara Ebek Memorial primary school in Amolatar district. The project also provided support with his school fees and materials. Emmanuel now has teachers who can speak in sign language, so he feels welcome and comfortable to learn. His teachers have described him as a bright boy, one of the best in class!

Not only is Emmanuel making great progress with his education, but he’s also been making lots of friends. He loves playing football with them. His mother says: “Emmanuel is now a happy boy with many friends and is very confident.”

Through the work of the project, Emmanuel’s community now believe that children with disabilities have a future through inclusive education. Emmanuel says he’d also like to become a teacher himself one day so that he can help other children like him.

Small changes, big impacts – the importance of inclusive learning environments

Esther Banda is a primary school teacher at one of schools participating in Leonard Cheshire’s Inclusive Education project in the Eastern Province of Zambia. She took part in inclusive teacher training in May 2019.

Around the time that the inclusive education project was introduced at their school in January 2019, Esther had started teaching Efita, a 10-year-old learner with epilepsy and other developmental impairments. It was Esther’s first time teaching a student with a disability, and it was the first time that Efita had attended mainstream school. At first Esther did not know how to include Efita in the classroom activities. She was sure that Efita would not benefit from her class. Efita, who had never been to school before, showed signs of being afraid and disinterested in school and was constantly isolated from others.

However, after the teacher training, Esther is now better equipped to deliver lessons in an inclusive manner. She is now confident that Efita will be learning well with others. She has started implementing some of the inclusive approaches that she learned, including arranging the classroom into groups so that children learn from each other. She’s also been using different chalk colours to write on the board to help accommodate other learners with visual impairments. Her method of delivering lessons is no longer her original lecture style but is now more learner focused. She allows for more discussion and uses learning aids such as diagrams as a way of simplifying content.

The changes in teaching approach have helped improve Efita’s performance in class. He now mingles with his classmates and has made many friends. At the moment he enjoys basic tracing activities and playing a role in classroom exercises. He also enjoys being clapped by other children when he answers questions correctly in class. As a result, his confidence and interest in school have increased a lot.

These milestones made with Efita have convinced Esther that inclusive education works. She says: “I now know that children with impairments are like other children, they have the right to education and have the ability to learn like other children”.

Over the next 3 years, Leonard Cheshire expects to enrol 750 children with disabilities in five districts in the Eastern Province of Zambia. In the first year, 421 children have been enrolled.

Using technology to create positive learning environments

Pauline Okach is a teacher at Nyasare Primary School in Migori County Kenya. She is one of 75 teachers who have been taking part in a training programme for the Orbit Reader 20, an assistive technology device that helps people with visual impairments read in braille, as well as take braille notes. The programme is part of Leonard Cheshire’s innovation initiative to expand the use of innovative low-cost assistive technology to learners with disabilities living in rural and under resourced areas.

The portable devices are light weight and operate in two main modes. The stand-alone mode has the capabilities of reading, writing and file management for books that have been translated into electronic braille. The remote mode allows the reader to be connected to a computer with a screen reader, with a removable memory card and Bluetooth connectivity. The devices allow children to read and write in braille, with notes that can then be converted back to electronic print for the teacher to read and grade accordingly.

As part of Leonard Cheshire’s Girls’ Education Challenge Transition project, a number of training modules have been developed so that teachers can help their students get the most out of the technology. While the Covid-19 pandemic affected schools around the world, teachers were still able to take part in the Orbit Reader 20 training, ensuring they were ready to support students on their return to school. The training was conducted by Leonard Cheshire staff in partnership with eKitabu, who developed the online training tutorials. The tutorials were then shared via Whatsapp, where the teachers were able to interact with and support each other.

To ensure progress was being made, individual follow up calls were made to the teachers following each tutorial, with ongoing support being provided by the instructors. An end-of-training assessment was also carried out to identify any knowledge gaps and ensure the teachers had access to further support if they needed it.

Pauline works in an integrated mainstream school which accommodates students with and without disabilities. A number of her students have visual impairments, including ten-year-old Marydith. Pauline already had good knowledge of the importance of inclusive education, taking part in training a few years ago in order to learn how best to support students with a range of disabilities and needs. Originally, she said her attitude towards disability was negative, but it is much more positive now she has had access to training. Following the recent Orbit Reader training, Pauline has been supporting Marydith to use the technology in class. With the use of the devices, Marydith has been using the Orbit Reader to learn the letters of the alphabet in braille. She can also use it to type and delete notes, helping her engage in class.

There have been a number of other adjustments made at the school to ensure Marydith is fully included. This includes clear, level pathways to help her move more freely around the school and highlighted doorways and steps with yellow or white paint making them more obvious to assist her. There is also an adapted timetable that ensures Marydith gets the learning support she needs, with extra time during lessons to help her use the Orbit Reader. In addition, she is a member of the school’s child to child club, where she gets to interact with her peers and demonstrate the value of inclusion.

Pauline believes that these universal design measures, as well as the introduction of assistive technology, has helped improve inclusion in the school and changed the attitudes of other students. Before, there was a lot of stigma around disability and other students felt nervous to be around children with visual impairments. Now, they have much more awareness and appreciation for disability. They accommodate Marydith and help her move around the school between classes. This has created a positive atmosphere at the school, reducing bullying and creating a productive learning environment for the students. The Orbit Readers have also greatly improved Marydith’s learning progress. She can now read and write without straining her eyes, allowing her to succeed in class and stay on the same level as her classmates.

Without assistive devices like the Orbit Readers, children with severe visual impairments would not have the same opportunities for education and may even feel discouraged to attend school. Pauline hopes that more teachers can get access to training on the technology so that even more students can benefit from these and other devices.

The power of data in advocacy

Youth advocate Ian Banda tells us how data can help him make changes in Zambia.

There is so much power in data. Data – like personal stories and facts and figures – is so important in getting a strong message across. In fact, it was central to my role as lead citizen reporter on Leonard Cheshire’s 2030 and Counting project.

The community citizen reporters and I went out and gathered community insights with our phones. We would then submit the content to a central reporting hub. The aim was to find data and stories about the barriers, challenges and opportunities for youth with disabilities in Zambia. Specifically, in relation to health, education and employment. This data is so important in tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And making sure disabled people are included in this progress too! Because there is no single SDG that covers just disability, but the 17 SDGs can only be achieved if people with disabilities have their rights fulfilled.

I found Rebecca’s story on education during a data collection trip in the local community. I was touched by how much Rebecca valued education. She knew it could improve her life. She has really big dreams for our country and access to education is an important part of that. I feel personal stories are important for advocacy. They show the impact on a personal, individual level. And they show what is transpiring on the ground with regards to disability inclusion. Stories also help provide a clear picture when providing evidence-based advocacy. This is essential if you want to bring about change at a higher level.

After 2030 and Counting I set up Youth in Action for Disability Inclusion of Zambia (YADIZ). We are a youth-led disability inclusion organisation. We promote the inclusion of youth with disabilities in all aspects of life. I know the information available on Leonard Cheshire’s Disability Data Portal will really help us with our work.

The portal gives us access to evidence for our advocacy work. Valuable data on the portal from census' shows that Zambian policies and practices have gaps when it comes to disability. These figures can go a long way in highlighting concerns and irregularities in the way the government implements policy. Especially in areas like education and employment. These gaps need to be filled in order for disability inclusion to be a reality in Zambia. No one should be left behind and we are the best placed to bring that message to governments.

As the portal continues to expand we will also be able to see how we compare with other countries and assess gaps in other areas. From work in the community we know there are issues when it comes to inaccessible sexual reproductive health for people with disabilities. As well as negative attitudes displayed by health personnel. There’s also a lack of information in accessible formats. And despite Zambia having some progressive policies, there is no implementation, monitoring and evaluation framework to really track progress. That was also a recurring issue many people with disabilities experienced across the world. The simple lack of accessible information about Covid-19 put us at a disadvantage. Access to better quality data, like the portal, can help us highlight these issues.

When it comes to advocacy, it’s essential everyone has access to research. That way we can improve public knowledge and awareness of the rights of people with disabilities. Data and stories are two sides of the same coin. By combining the two, we can influence laws and policies so that they are inclusive.

Find out more about Ian’s fight for equality in Zambia

Universal design at Mcini Primary School

Leonard Cheshire and Cheshire Homes Society in Zambia have been working together to make vital school adaptations at Mcini Primary School in Zambia. Now the school is much more accessible for children with disabilities.

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Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to integrate an all-white public elementary school in the South. She later became a civil rights activist.

Who Is Ruby Bridges?

Ruby Nell Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi. She grew up on the farm her parents and grandparents sharecropped in Mississippi.

When she was four years old, her parents, Abon and Lucille Bridges, moved to New Orleans, hoping for a better life in a bigger city.

Her father got a job as a gas station attendant and her mother took night jobs to help support their growing family. Soon, young Bridges had two younger brothers and a younger sister.

Education and Facts

The fact that Bridges was born the same year that the Supreme Court handed down its Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating schools is a notable coincidence in her early journey into civil rights activism.

When Bridges was in kindergarten, she was one of many African American students in New Orleans who were chosen to take a test determining whether or not she could attend a white school. It is said the test was written to be especially difficult so that students would have a hard time passing. The idea was that if all the African American children failed the test, New Orleans schools might be able to stay segregated for a while longer.

Bridges lived a mere five blocks from an all-white school, but she attended kindergarten several miles away, at an all-Black segregated school. Bridges’ father was averse to his daughter taking the test, believing that if she passed and was allowed to go to the white school, there would be trouble. However, her mother, Lucille, pressed the issue, believing that Bridges would get a better education at a white school. She was eventually able to convince Bridges' father to let her take the test

In 1960, Bridges' parents were informed by officials from the NAACP that she was one of only six African American students to pass the test. Bridges would be the only African American student to attend the William Frantz School, near her home, and the first Black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.

School Desegregation

When the first day of school rolled around in September, Bridges was still at her old school. All through the summer and early fall, the Louisiana State Legislature had found ways to fight the federal court order and slow the integration process. After exhausting all stalling tactics, the Legislature had to relent, and the designated schools were to be integrated that November.

Fearing there might be some civil disturbances, the federal district court judge requested the U.S. government send federal marshals to New Orleans to protect the children. On the morning of November 14, 1960, federal marshals drove Bridges and her mother five blocks to her new school. While in the car, one of the men explained that when they arrived at the school, two marshals would walk in front of Bridges and two would be behind her.

When Bridges and the federal marshals arrived at the school, large crowds of people were gathered in front yelling and throwing objects. There were barricades set up, and policemen were everywhere.

Bridges, in her innocence, first believed it was like a Mardi Gras celebration. When she entered the school under the protection of the federal marshals, she was immediately escorted to the principal's office and spent the entire day there. The chaos outside, and the fact that nearly all the white parents at the school had kept their children home, meant classes weren't going to be held at all that day.

Ostracized at Elementary School

On her second day, the circumstances were much the same as the first, and for a while, it looked like Bridges wouldn't be able to attend class. Only one teacher, Barbara Henry, agreed to teach Bridges. She was from Boston and a new teacher to the school. "Mrs. Henry," as Bridges would call her even as an adult, greeted her with open arms.

Bridges was the only student in Henry's class because parents pulled or threatened to pull their children from Bridges' class and send them to other schools. For a full year, Henry and Bridges sat side by side at two desks, working on Bridges' lessons. Henry was loving and supportive of Bridges, helping her not only with her studies but also with the difficult experience of being ostracized.

Bridges' first few weeks at Frantz School were not easy ones. Several times she was confronted with blatant racism in full view of her federal escorts. On her second day of school, a woman threatened to poison her. After this, the federal marshals allowed her to only eat food from home. On another day, she was "greeted" by a woman displaying a Black doll in a wooden coffin.

Bridges' mother kept encouraging her to be strong and pray while entering the school, which Bridges discovered reduced the vehemence of the insults yelled at her and gave her courage. She spent her entire day, every day, in Mrs. Henry's classroom, not allowed to go to the cafeteria or out to recess to be with other students in the school. When she had to go to the restroom, the federal marshals walked her down the hall.

Several years later, federal marshal Charles Burks, one of her escorts, commented with some pride that Bridges showed a lot of courage. She never cried or whimpered, Burks said, "She just marched along like a little soldier."

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Effect on the Bridges Family

The abuse wasn't limited to only Bridges; her family suffered as well. Her father lost his job at the filling station, and her grandparents were sent off the land they had sharecropped for over 25 years. The grocery store where the family shopped banned them from entering. However, many others in the community, both Black and white, began to show support in a variety of ways. Gradually, many families began to send their children back to the school and the protests and civil disturbances seemed to subside as the year went on.

A neighbor provided Bridges' father with a job, while others volunteered to babysit the four children, watch the house as protectors, and walk behind the federal marshals on the trips to school.

Signs of Stress

After winter break, Bridges began to show signs of stress. She experienced nightmares and would wake her mother in the middle of the night seeking comfort.For a time, she stopped eating lunch in her classroom, which she usually ate alone. Wanting to be with the other students, she would not eat the sandwiches her mother packed for her, but instead hid them in a storage cabinet in the classroom.

Soon, a janitor discovered the mice and cockroaches who had found the sandwiches. The incident led Mrs. Henry to lunch with Bridges in the classroom.Bridges started seeing child psychologist Dr. Robert Coles, who volunteered to provide counseling during her first year at Frantz School. He was very concerned about how such a young girl would handle the pressure. He saw Bridges once a week either at school or at her home.

During these sessions, he would just let her talk about what she was experiencing. Sometimes his wife came too and, like Dr. Coles, she was very caring toward Bridges. Coles later wrote a series of articles for Atlantic Monthly and eventually a series of books on how children handle change, including a children's book on Bridges' experience.

Overcoming Obstacles

Near the end of the first year, things began to settle down. A few white children in Bridges' grade returned to the school. Occasionally, Bridges got a chance to visit with them. By her own recollection many years later, Bridges was not that aware of the extent of the racism that erupted over her attending the school. But when another child rejected Bridges' friendship because of her race, she began to slowly understand.

By Bridges' second year at Frantz School, it seemed everything had changed. Mrs. Henry's contract wasn't renewed, and so she and her husband returned to Boston. There were also no more federal marshals; Bridges walked to school every day by herself. There were other students in her second-grade class, and the school began to see full enrollment again. No one talked about the past year. It seemed everyone wanted to put the experience behind them.

Bridges finished grade school and graduated from the integrated Francis T. Nicholls High School in New Orleans. She then studied travel and tourism at the Kansas City business school and worked for American Express as a world travel agent.

Husband and Children

In 1984, Bridges married Malcolm Hall in New Orleans. She later became a full-time parent to their four sons.

Norman Rockwell Painting

In 1963, painter Norman Rockwell recreated Bridges' monumental first day at school in the painting, “The Problem We All Live With.” The image of this small Black girl being escorted to school by four large white men graced the cover of Look magazine on January 14, 1964.

The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, now owns the painting as part of its permanent collection. In 2011, the museum loaned the work to be displayed in the West Wing of the White House for four months upon the request of President Barack Obama .

Book and Movie

'the story of ruby bridges'.

In 1995, Robert Coles, Bridges' child psychologist and a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, published The Story of Ruby Bridges, a children's picture book depicting her courageous story.

Soon after, Barbara Henry, her teacher that first year at Frantz School, contacted Bridges and they were reunited on The Oprah Winfrey Show .

'Ruby Bridges'

“Ruby Bridges” is a Disney TV movie, written by Toni Ann Johnson, about Bridges' experience as the first Black child to integrate an all-white Southern elementary school.

The two-hour film, shot entirely in Wilmington, North Carolina, first aired on January 18, 1998, and was introduced by President Bill Clinton and Disney CEO Michael Eisner in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

Ruby Bridges Foundation

In 1999, Bridges formed the Ruby Bridges Foundation, headquartered in New Orleans. Bridges was inspired following the murder of her youngest brother, Malcolm Bridges, in a drug-related killing in 1993 — which brought her back to her former elementary school.

For a time, Bridges looked after Malcolm's four children, who attended William Frantz School. She soon began to volunteer there three days a week and soon became a parent-community liaison.

With Bridges' experience as a liaison at the school and her reconnection with influential people in her past, she began to see a need for bringing parents back into the schools to take a more active role in their children's education.

Bridges launched her foundation to promote the values of tolerance, respect and appreciation of differences. Through education and inspiration, the foundation seeks to end racism and prejudice. As its motto goes, "Racism is a grown-up disease, and we must stop using our children to spread it."

In 2007, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis unveiled a new exhibition documenting Bridges' life, along with the lives of Anne Frank and Ryan White.

QUICK FACTS

Birth Year: 1954
Birth date: September 8, 1954
Birth State: Mississippi
Birth City: Tylertown
Birth Country: United States
Best Known For: Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to integrate an all-white public elementary school in the South. She later became a civil rights activist.
Civil Rights
Education and Academia
Astrological Sign: Virgo
William Frantz Elementary School
Interesting Facts
In 1960, Ruby Bridges became the first African American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

Article Title: Ruby Bridges Biography
Author: Biography.com Editors
Website Name: The Biography.com website
Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/ruby-bridges
Access Date:
Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
Last Updated: February 23, 2021
Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
My message is really that racism has no place in the hearts and minds of our children.
I've been told that my ideas are grandiose. Yes, they are. However, so were the ideas that marched me through screaming crowds and up the stairs of William Frantz Elementary more than 50 years ago.
In order to truly make lasting positive change—to keep Dr. King's dream moving forward—we need to think big and act big.
That first morning I remember mom saying as I got dressed in my new outfit, 'Now, I want you to behave yourself today, Ruby, and don't be afraid. There might be a lot of people outside this new school, but I'll be with you.'
I wish there were enough marshals to walk with every child as they faced the hatred and racism today, and to support, encourage them the way these federal marshals did for me.
My mother said to me, 'Ruby, if I'm not with you and you're afraid, then always say your prayers.'
There were lots of people outside, and they were screaming and shouting and the police officers. But I thought it was Mardi Gras, you know, I didn't know that all of that was because of me.
Racism is something that we, as adults, have kept alive. We pass it on to our kids. None of our kids come into the world knowing anything about disliking one another.
I believe that history should be taught in a different way. History definitely should be taught the way it happened—good, bad or ugly. History is sacred. For me history is a foundation and the truth.
[My teacher Mrs. Henry] taught me what Dr. King tried to teach all of us. We should never judge a person by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That was the lesson I learned at 6 years old.

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Below you'll find the list with stories for kids about education tap the corresponding icon to read, download as pdf or listen to as mp3, never make fun of a rhino , a story about learn to not make fun of others.

A story for kids to teach not make fun of others

"Making fun of others often makes them angry, and can lead to violence"

The boy who was too rude to others , a story about Respect and politeness

Un cuento para evitar las faltas de respeto y el abuso

"Rudeness harms not just those on the receiving end but also those who are rude."

The Magic Tree , a story about Good manners

"The origin of good manners"

The Bad Neighbours , a story about Communication. Do not judge others's intentions.

A short story to teach not to judge others' actions

"We should not guess or imagine the intentions of others. Talking is how we come to understand others, and clear up a great many problems"

An Allergic Wizard , a story about Be respectful and kind to others

"With very little effort, and some tact, you can be considerate to, and include everyone"

A Letter Soup , a story about Good manners

A short and funny story to teach good manners

"Good manners help us live together in a pleasant atmosphere"

The Two Spells , a story about Good manners and education

A short story to teach children good manners

"Good manners so facilitate communication with others that they allow you to get much more than by using authority."

The Happy Sweeper , a story about Tidiness; working joyfully

A short story for children about working joyfully

"It’s better to be clean and tidy from the start, and anyone can clean up in a joyful spirit."

The Monster in the Wardrobe

The Last Dinosaurs

Humility among the Animals

The Photographic Elephant

Waking Nightmare

Cuento sobre el esfuerzo y mejorar con la práctica

The Drawing That Talked

Cuento para decir "por favor" y "gracias"

The Magic Tree

Cuento sobre la sinceridad con los hijos

The Hair Thief

Bula, the traveller

Cuento sobre la importancia de hablar para aclarar las cosas

The Bad Neighbours

Trouble in the Science Class

Boobuan monkeys

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Importance of Education

All my life, as far as I can recall, there was one thing my mother always made sure I understood – to be independent. She always used to tell me that everything else is secondary; education is of prime importance. According to her, it is like a gust of fresh air that cleanses the stagnant mind and lets you think clearly. Though I never understood why she said that, I used to nod in affirmation; until recently, when I realized why she used to stress the importance of education so much. Let me share a story with you all today. Pranita was 15 when she was about to elope with her boyfriend. She was ready to give up everything – her education, her family and trust her entire life into the hands of someone she knew just for few months. But on the day of eloping, she was caught by her dad. Furious, he sent her to some relative’s house in a far away village and there she was kept under strict supervision. She didn’t wish to continue studies and neither did anyone force her. She spent her time doing household chores until 3 years later, when she was married to Ashish, a guy of her dad’s selection. Pranita didn’t object. Infact, she welcomed it as the much needed change in her monotonous life. Ashish ran a small business in partnership with his friend. Pranita had to attend the business parties thrown by clients along with Ashish. She enjoyed it and relished it. But time doesn’t stay the same, for good times do come to an end. One year passed in a jiffy and Pranita was enjoying her new life with Ashish. But soon destiny played a cruel joke on them which changed their lives forever. Ashish’s business partner tricked him and ran away with the entire money. They went broke. Soon they were on streets. They sold their home, jewellery to make a living. Ashish tried his hands at different jobs but nothing worked. In the midst of all these troubles, they had two little ones to feed. Frustrated with the troubles, Ashish became a slave of alcohol and started hitting Pranati. Her life turned into hell. There was nothing she could do, for she didn’t know how to lead a life if she stepped out of Ashish’s home. So she took it all silently, seeing the face of her little ones. Things weren’t getting any better. Situation worsened with passing time and so did Ashish’s cruelty. He took loans to satiate his thirst for alcohol. Hundreds turned into thousands and thousands turned into lakhs. The loan sharks started asking back the money and one fine day, he ran away leaving behind Pranati and the kids to face the wrath of the loan sharks. What could she do? She wasn’t educated nor did she have any idea how things worked in real world. She tried to find a job but couldn’t. Life isn’t that easy. It became difficult to make the ends meet. She cried regretting her past. She wished she had payed attention towards studies and had learnt something. Then this day wouldn’t have come. She would have at least known how to deal with the situation. Today, she is still striving to find a work with decent pay to make the ends meet. But there is one thing she does – sending her little ones to school. She stresses the importance of education to every child she meets. She tells them how education is the only that could help them lead a better life. So that was Pranita’s story. Neither she, nor her dad had realized the importance of education and in the end, they paid a huge price for it. Seeing this changed my perspective towards life. I now know why my mom used to stress so much about education. Good education is that weapon which can aid you out of difficulties. It gives you the courage needed to face any situation. It gives our life a sense of security. Education is freedom. It gives you wings that help you reach heights. I am lucky to have parents who know the importance of education and sent me to school. But there are many children who are denied this right to education. Kids are either made to work or are married of at an early age. Join hands and help to save such kids. Help them get back their childhood and secure their future. Because with every child that joins school, our country will progress towards development.

(This post was written as part of #Selfies4School campaign by Breakthrough TV )

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51 Irresistible Short Stories for Kids (Read Them All for Free!)

Quick reads with lasting impact.

Looking for some free tales to use for close reading or classroom read-alouds? This roundup of short stories for kids has plenty of options. From quick fables with morals to old-fashioned fairy tales and folktales from around the world, this diverse collection offers something for any child. We’ve also included ways to use these short stories with kids, in the classroom or at home.

Note: Always be sure to read a selection through before sharing it with children. Some of these short stories for kids, especially ones written a long time ago, may not be appropriate for every audience.

Classic Fairy Tale Short Stories for Kids

“ cinderella ” by charles perrault, “‘do not cry, cinderella,’ she said; ‘you also shall go to the ball, because you are a kind, good girl.'”.

Why I love it: This is one of those short stories for kids that everyone probably already knows. This older version is a little different than the Disney movie, so ask kids if they can identify the changes. They can also have fun imagining what other items could be transformed to help Cinderella get to the ball!

“ Thumbelina ” by Hans Christian Andersen

“there once was a woman who wanted so very much to have a tiny little child, but she did not know where to find one. so she went to an old witch, and she said: ‘i have set my heart upon having a tiny little child. please could you tell me where i can find one’”.

Why I love it: If there’s one thing this world can use more of, we think it is definitely kindness. We love that the story of Thumbelina spreads the message that kindness pays off in big ways. Thumbelina helps the swallow and in turn finds her true love.

“ The Emperor’s New Clothes ” by Hans Christian Andersen

“‘But the Emperor has nothing at all on!’ said a little child.”

Why I love it: This is a wonderful story for talking about peer pressure and being brave enough to stand up for what you believe in. Kids will also enjoy drawing the imaginary suit of clothes that the king thought he saw.

“ The Little Mermaid ” by Hans Christian Andersen

“’it was you,’ said the prince, ‘who saved my life when i lay dead on the beach,’ and he folded his blushing bride in his arms. ‘oh, i am too happy,’ said he to the little mermaid; ‘my fondest hopes are all fulfilled. you will rejoice at my happiness; for your devotion to me is great and sincere.'”.

Why I love it: The story of the Little Mermaid focuses on sacrificial love. In it, the Sea King puts the needs of his daughter over that of himself. Open a dialogue with kids about a time when they put someone else’s needs over their own.

“ Rapunzel” by Jacob Grimm

“there once lived a man and his wife, who had long wished for a child, but in vain. now there was at the back of their house a little window which overlooked a beautiful garden full of the finest vegetables and flowers; but there was a high wall all round it, and no one ventured into it, for it belonged to a witch of great might, and of whom all the world was afraid.”.

Why I love it: This story explores themes of autonomy, love, jealousy, and freedom. Children need to be set free to explore their own lives.

“ The Frog Prince ” by the Brothers Grimm

“and the princess, though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. as soon as it was light, he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house. ‘now, then,’ thought the princess, ‘at last he is gone, and i shall be troubled with him no more.'”.

Why I love it: Kids love this familiar story about a prince in disguise and a young girl who keeps her word even though she doesn’t want to. In this version, the girl doesn’t need to kiss the frog, but she’s rewarded anyway.

“ The Gingerbread Man ” by Anonymous

“run, run as fast as you can you can’t catch me, i’m the gingerbread man”.

Why I love it: In the original tale, the Gingerbread Man is eventually caught and eaten. This retelling gives him a happy ending instead. For a fun activity, let kids decorate and eat their own gingerbread people.

“ The Velveteen Rabbit ” by Margery Williams

“‘real isn’t how you are made,’ said the skin horse. ‘it’s a thing that happens to you. when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.'”.

Why I love it: This is one of the most classic short stories for kids of all time! Let kids bring their own favorite toys to share with the class, and have them write or tell stories about what would happen if they became “real.”

“ The Elves and the Shoemaker ” by Jacob Grimm

“a shoemaker, by no fault of his own, had become so poor that at last he had nothing left but leather for one pair of shoes. so in the evening, he cut out the shoes which he wished to begin to make the next morning, and as he had a good conscience, he lay down quietly in his bed, commended himself to god, and fell asleep.”.

Why I love it: Short stories for kids that are packed with life lessons are tops in our book. Amongst the lessons found in this tale are to work hard and to be grateful for the help you receive. It was through his hard work that the shoemaker achieved riches and success.

“ The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats ” by the Brothers Grimm

“there was once an old goat who had seven little ones, and was as fond of them as ever mother was of her children.”.

Why I love it: Some of the best short stories for kids serve as cautionary tales. In this story, the young goats fail to heed their mother’s warning and succumb to the wolf’s attempts at deceit.

“ The Snow Queen ” by Hans Christian Andersen

“now then, let us begin. when we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now: but to begin.”.

Why I love it: This story is the classic struggle between good and evil. It also focuses on the values of friendship and perseverance.

“ Jack and the Beanstalk ” by Anonymous

“why, the beans his mother had thrown out of the window into the garden had sprung up into a giant beanstalk which went up and up and up until it reached the sky. so the man spoke truth after all”.

Why I love it: This story is a fun read, but use it to get your students thinking critically. Was it really OK for Jack to steal from the giant? Ask them to write an essay sharing their thoughts on the subject, or use it for a fun classroom debate.

“ Little Red Riding Hood ” by the Brothers Grimm

“‘but grandmother what big eyes you have,’ said little red riding hood. ‘the better to see you with, my dear,’ replied the wolf.”.

Why I love it: This retelling of the well-known tale is a little less gruesome, since the hunter merely frightens the wolf into spitting out poor granny (instead of slicing open his belly). Talk with kids about ways they can keep themselves safe when they’re out in the world.

“ The Pied Piper of Hamelin ” by the Brothers Grimm

“he sounded his fife in the streets, but this time it wasn’t rats and mice that came to him, but rather children: a great number of boys and girls from their fourth year on. among them was the mayor’s grown daughter. the swarm followed him, and he led them into a mountain, where he disappeared with them.”.

Why I love it: Some say this is a true story, and whether or not that’s true, it definitely has a moral—when people make a bargain, they should stick to their agreement. Ask kids to think about what kind of music the Pied Piper might have played, and why both children and rats couldn’t resist it.

“ The Princess and the Pea ” by Hans Christian Andersen

“i cannot think what could have been in the bed. i lay upon something so hard that i am quite black and blue all over.”.

Why I love it: This has long been one of the most beloved short stories for kids, and it’s ideal when you need a quick read. Then, grab some dried peas and see how thick a covering needs to be before students can no longer feel them.

“ Puss in Boots ” by Charles Perrault

“puss became a great lord, and never ran after mice anymore, except for pleasure.”.

Why I love it: All cat lovers know these animals can be pretty smart when they want to be. This one helps his poor master become a prince in a castle, all through his own clever tricks. Encourage students to come up with more creative ways Puss in Boots could help his master.

“ Rumpelstiltskin ” by the Brothers Grimm

“‘I will give you three days,’ said he, ‘if by that time you find out my name, then shall you keep your child.'”

Why I love it: Pretty much everyone in this story behaves badly in one way or another. Use it to learn more about characters and their motivation.

“ Sleeping Beauty ” by the Brothers Grimm

“a great many changes take place in a hundred years.”.

Why I love it: After students read this well-known story, ask them to think about what it would be like to go to sleep today and wake up in a hundred years. What might the world be like? Or what would it be like for someone who fell asleep a hundred years ago to wake up today? How many things have changed since then?

“ Snow White ” by the Brothers Grimm

“mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all”.

Why I love it: This fairy tale has all the classic elements—beautiful heroine, wicked stepmother, handsome prince—plus a handful of helpful dwarves. It’s the perfect way to start a conversation about the dangers of envy and jealousy.

“ The Three Little Pigs ” by Anonymous

“not by the hairs on our chinny chin chin”.

Why I love it: Fairy tales don’t get much more classic than this. Follow it up with a reading of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Sciesczka to hear the story from the wolf’s perspective, and have a conversation about point of view.

“ The Ugly Duckling ” by Hans Christian Andersen

“but what did he see there, mirrored in the clear stream he beheld his own image, and it was no longer the reflection of a clumsy, dirty, gray bird, ugly and offensive. he himself was a swan being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.”.

Why I love it: Whether you read the original text or a shorter adaptation, this story is one every kid should know. It will teach them that everyone should be proud of who they are, even if they don’t look or feel like everyone else.

Aesop’s Fables as Short Stories for Kids

“ the ants and the grasshopper ” by aesop, “one bright day in late autumn a family of ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.”.

Why I love it: It can be hard to teach kids that there are things in life they need to do regardless of whether they are fun or not. This fable will help little ones understand the value of putting in hard work to set ourselves up for future successes.

“ The Boy Who Cried Wolf ” by Aesop

“so now, though he had not seen anything that even looked like a wolf, he ran toward the village shouting at the top of his voice, ‘wolf wolf'”.

Why I love it: This might be the most famous short story we use to teach kids about how important it is to tell the truth. Ask students if they’ve ever pulled a prank that went wrong, and what they learned from it.

“ The Crow and the Pitcher ” by Aesop

“But the pitcher was high and had a narrow neck, and no matter how he tried, the Crow could not reach the water.”

Why I love it: Aesop’s fable reads more like a STEM challenge—how can you reach the water at the bottom of the pitcher when your neck isn’t long enough? Try the same experiment with your students, using a narrow-necked bottle. Can they come up with any other solutions?

“ The Fox and the Grapes ” by Aesop

“the grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.”.

Why I love it: If kids have ever wondered where the phrase “sour grapes” comes from, this tale will answer that question. Talk about other idiomatic phrases, and do some research to find their origins.

“ The Lion and the Mouse ” by Aesop

“‘you laughed when i said i would repay you,’ said the mouse. ‘now you see that even a mouse can help a lion.'”.

Why I love it: This fable reminds kids that they’re never too small to make a difference in someone’s life. Ask kids to share their own stories of times they helped someone.

“ The Tortoise and the Hare ” by Aesop

“the hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the tortoise should catch up.”.

Why I love it: When kids need a reminder that they should always keep trying, turn to this famous story. Use it to teach growth mindset too.

“ Two Travelers and a Bear ” by Aesop

“Two men were traveling in company through a forest, when, all at once, a huge bear crashed out of the brush near them.”

Why I love it: When danger strikes, do you worry about yourself first or try to help everyone to safety? There are arguments to be made on both sides, so this one makes for an interesting debate or persuasive essay.

“ The Apple Dumpling ” by Anonymous

“A bag of feathers for a basket of plums. A bunch of flowers for a bag of feathers. A golden chain for a bunch of flowers. And a dog for a golden chain. All the world is give and take, and who knows if I may have my apple dumpling yet.”

Why I love it: When an old woman sets out to trade her basket of plums for some apples, her quest takes a few twists and turns along the way. In the end, though, she manages to make many people happy, not just herself. Practice sequencing by having kids try to remember all the trades the woman makes, and the order she makes them in.

“ The Blind Men and the Elephant ” by Anonymous

“sixth blind man (feeling the tail): this elephant is not like a wall, or a spear, or a snake, or a tree, or a fan. he is exactly like a rope.”.

Why I love it: Six blind men each feel a different part of an elephant, and each comes to his own very different conclusions. Written as a very short play, this classic tale opens up all sorts of discussion opportunities about seeing the bigger picture.

“ Bruce and the Spider ” by James Baldwin

“but the spider did not lose hope with the sixth failure. with still more care, she made ready to try for the seventh time. bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself out upon the slender line. would she fail again no the thread was carried safely to the beam, and fastened there.”.

Why I love it: This famous little tale is almost certainly a myth, but it’s one of the most well-known stories about King Robert the Bruce. The lesson about not giving up fits perfectly when you’re talking about growth mindset.

“ The Elephant’s Child ” by Rudyard Kipling

“but there was one elephant—a new elephant—an elephant’s child—who was full of ’satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions.”.

Why I love it: Many kids will recognize themselves in the Elephant’s Child and his (in)satiable curiosity. After you read this one, have students come up with stories for the way other animals got their unique features. How did the giraffe get its long neck? How did the turtle get its shell? So many possibilities!

“ Paul Bunyan ” by William B. Laughead

“when paul was a boy, he was fast as lightning. he could blow out a candle at night and hop into bed before it was dark.”.

Why I love it: Paul Bunyan is an American folk hero, larger than life (literally!). This roundup of the legends surrounding him has many of the most famous tales. Encourage kids to think about what they’d do if they were as big, strong, and fast as Paul.

“ The Little Engine That Could ” by Watty Piper

“I think I can. I think I can.”

Why I love it: When little ones learn early on to believe in themselves, they’ll be willing to try their best at anything. Have kids tell their own stories of times they did something that seemed impossible at first when they kept on trying.

“ The Four Dragons ” by Anonymous

“the four dragons flew back and forth, making the sky dark all around. before long the sea water became rain pouring down from the sky.”.

Why I love it: The four dragons in this Chinese tale want to help save the people from drought. When the Jade Emperor won’t help, they take matters into their own hands. Ultimately, they become the four major rivers of China. This is a great opportunity to get out the globe or pull up Google Earth and learn more about China’s geography.

“ Henny Penny ” by Anonymous

“so henny-penny, cocky-locky, ducky-daddles, goosey-poosey and turkey-lurkey all went to tell the king the sky was a-falling.”.

Why I love it: In an age when people are quick to spread rumors as fact, this old European folktale is more meaningful than ever. See if kids can think of times when they heard a crazy rumor that they believed at first, even though it turned out to be completely false.

“ How Gimme the Ax Found Out About the Zigzag Railroad ” by Carl Sandburg

“Then the zizzies came. The zizzy is a bug. He runs zigzag on zigzag legs, eats zigzag with zigzag teeth, and spits zigzag with a zigzag tongue.”

Why I love it: Kids will get a kick out of all the Z sounds in this silly little story about why some local railroad tracks run in zigzags. Use it to teach about alliteration and consonance, and ask kids to draw their own pictures of the zizzies.

“ King Midas and the Golden Touch ” by Anonymous

“suddenly, he started to sense fear. tears filled his eyes and that moment, his beloved daughter entered the room. when midas hugged her, she turned into a golden statue”.

Why I love it: Teach kids to be careful what they wish for. Ask them to make a list of wishes, then talk about ways each of them could ultimately go wrong. Have them write their own version of this short story.

“ The Kite That Went to the Moon ” by Evelyn Sharp

“‘i have everything in the world in my bag,’ replied the little old man, ‘for everything is there that everybody wants. i have laughter and tears and happiness and sadness; i can give you riches or poverty, sense or nonsense; here is a way to discover the things that you don’t know, and a way to forget the things that you do know.'”.

Why I love this: This whimsical tale takes two small children on a voyage to the moon and back, as they follow an enchanted kite. Pair it with a crafting session where kids make their own kites to fly.

“ The Monkey and the Turtle ” by José Rizal

“a monkey and a turtle found a banana tree on a river. they fished it out and because each wanted the tree for himself, they cut it in half.”.

Why I love it: A monkey and a turtle each plant half a banana tree, but only the turtle’s grows. The monkey offers to harvest the fruit but keeps it all for himself. But the turtle has plans of his own! This folktale from the Philippines is actually an allegory about the Spanish colonizers’ treatment of the Filipino people.

“ The Tale of Peter Rabbit ” by Beatrix Potter

“‘now, my dears,’ said old mrs. rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into mr. mcgregor’s garden: your father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by mrs. mcgregor.'”.

Why I love it: Beatrix Potter’s sweet tales are beloved, but this is the one that has really endured. Pair it with one of these terrific Peter Rabbit activities.

“ Rikki-Tikki-Tavi ” by Rudyard Kipling

“rikki-tikki did not care to follow them, for he did not feel sure that he could manage two snakes at once. so he trotted off to the gravel path near the house, and sat down to think. it was a serious matter for him.”.

Why I love it: Reading this story is like watching a nature documentary unfold on the page. Have kids do some research on the mongoose and its relationship with cobras in real life.

“ The Story of the Chinese Zodiac ” by Anonymous

“he reached out his paws and pushed his friend the cat into the river. the cat was swept away by the whirling waters. that is why there is no cat in the chinese calendar.”.

Why I love it: This short little tale manages to answer two questions—why there’s no Year of the Cat and why cats and rats can’t be friends. After reading it, try to imagine how the other animals in the calendar managed to win their spots.

“ Weighing the Elephant ” by Anonymous

“‘very well,’ said the emperor with a smile. ‘tell me how to weigh the elephant.'”.

Why I love it: Read this traditional Chinese tale right up to the point where the young boy reveals his idea for weighing an elephant without a giant scale. Ask kids if they can come up with the solution before continuing to the end of the story. You can even try out the correct method as a STEM challenge.

“ Winnie-the-Pooh Goes Visiting ” by A.A. Milne

“pooh always liked a little something at eleven o’clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when rabbit said, ‘honey or condensed milk with your bread’ he was so excited that he said, ‘both,’ and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, ‘but don’t bother about the bread, please.'”.

Why I love it: This silly old bear has been delighting children for decades, and there are dozens of short stories for kids about him and his friends. This one has a little built-in moral about greed. You can also ask kids to brainstorm their own ways to get Pooh free from Rabbit’s front door.

“ Town Musicians of Bremen ” by Jacob Grimm

“a certain man had a donkey, which had carried the corn-sacks to the mill indefatigably for many a long year; but his strength was going, and he was growing more and more unfit for work.”.

Why I love it: This relatively unknown work by Jacob Grimm teaches kids the value of resilience and getting up when knocked down.

“ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ” by Mark Twain

“in compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the east, i called on good-natured, garrulous old simon wheeler, and inquired after my friend’s friend, leonidas w. smiley, as requested to do, and i hereunto append the result.”.

Why I love it: Twain uses an allegory of two frogs to highlight the struggle between the elite and the common. We love short stories for kids that encourage them to be true to oneself and this one does just that!

“ The Reluctant Dragon ” by Kenneth Grahame

“long ago—might have been hundreds of years ago—in a cottage half-way between this village and yonder shoulder of the downs up there, a shepherd lived with his wife and their little son.”.

Why I love it: This story is a good way to introduce young kids to the concepts of bullying and prejudice. Through the story, kids will learn that they shouldn’t judge things by appearances as the dragon in the story is not what he seems.

“ The Fisherman and His Wife ” by the Brothers Grimm

“once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a filthy shack near the sea. every day the fisherman went out fishing, and he fished, and he fished. once he was sitting there fishing and looking into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat. then his hook went to the bottom, deep down, and when he pulled it out, he had caught a large flounder.”.

Why I love it: Teaching young people the value of appreciating what you have and not always seeking out more is of the utmost importance. This short story encapsulates that and warns about the pitfalls of greed.

“ The Great Stone Face ” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“one afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the great stone face. they had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.”.

Why I love it: This story weaves nature and divinity in a story that centers around a great stone face which encapsulates qualities like wisdom and nobility.

Looking for more short stories for kids? Check out this roundup geared toward the middle school crowd.

Plus, sign up for our free newsletters to get all the latest teaching news and ideas, straight to your inbox, you might also like.

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75 Best Short Stories To Teach in Middle School

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43 of the Most Iconic Short Stories in the English Language

From washington irving to kristen roupenian.

Last year, I put together this list of the most iconic poems in the English language ; it’s high time to do the same for short stories. But before we go any further, you may be asking: What does “iconic” mean in this context? Can a short story really be iconic in the way of a poem, or a painting, or Elvis?

Well, who knows, but for our purposes, “iconic” means that the story has somehow wormed its way into the general cultural consciousness—a list of the best short stories in the English language would look quite different than the one below. (Also NB that in this case we’re necessarily talking about the American cultural consciousness, weird and wiggly as it is.) When something is iconic, it is a highly recognizable cultural artifact that can be used as a shorthand—which often means it has been referenced in other forms of media. You know, just like Elvis. (So for those of you heading to the comments to complain that these stories are “the usual suspects”—well, exactly.) An iconic short story may be frequently anthologized , which usually means frequently read in classrooms, something that can lead to cultural ubiquity—but interestingly, the correlation isn’t perfect. For instance, Joyce’s “Araby” is anthologized more often, but for my money “The Dead” is more iconic . Film adaptations and catchy, reworkable titles help. But in the end, for better or for worse, you know it when you see it. Which means that, like anything else, it all depends on your point of view—icon status is (like most of the ways we evaluate art) highly subjective.

So, having acknowledged that there’s no real way to make this list, but because this is what we’re all here to do, here are some of the most iconic short stories for American readers in the English language—and a few more that deserve to be more iconic than they are.

Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) I agonized over whether I should pick “Rip Van Winkle” or “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” from Irving’s oeuvre. Both have many, many adaptations to their name and are so ubiquitous as to have drifted into the folklore realm. The latter certainly has more memorable recent adaptations, but the former is the only one with a bridge named after it . Ah, screw it, we’ll count them both.

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) Poe’s early stream-of-consciousness horror story, unreliable narrator and heart beating under the floorboards and all, is certainly one of the most adapted—and even more often referenced —short stories in popular culture, and which may or may not be the source for all of the hundreds of stories in which a character is tormented by a sound only they can hear. (Still not quite as ubiquitous as Poe himself , though . . .)

Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853) Once, while I was walking in Brooklyn, carrying my Bartleby tote bag , a woman in an SUV pulled over (on Atlantic Avenue, folks) to excitedly wave at me and yell “Melville! That’s Melville!” Which is all you really need to know about that .

Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) I will leave it to Kurt Vonnegut, who famously wrote , “I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read the greatest American short story, which is “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce. It isn’t remotely political. It is a flawless example of American genius, like “Sophisticated Lady” by Duke Ellington or the Franklin stove.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) Odds are this was the first overtly Feminist text you ever read, at least if you’re of a certain age; it’s become a stand-in for the idea of women being driven insane by the patriarchy—and being ignored by doctors, who deem them “hysterical.” This is another one with lots of adaptations to its name, including a memorable episode of The Twilight Zone , which concludes: “Next time you’re alone, look quickly at the wallpaper, and the ceiling, and the cracks on the sidewalk. Look for the patterns and lines and faces on the wall. Look, if you can, for Sharon Miles, visible only out of the corner of your eye or… in the Twilight Zone.”

Henry James, “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) Technically a novella, but discussed enough as a story that I’ll include it here (same goes for a couple of others on this list, including “The Metamorphosis”). It has, as a work of literature, inspired a seemingly endless amount of speculation, criticism, unpacking, and stance-taking. “In comment after comment, article after article, the evidence has been sifted through and judgments delivered,” Brad Leithauser wrote in The New Yorker . Fine, intelligent readers have confirmed the validity of the ghosts (Truman Capote); equally fine and intelligent readers have thunderously established the governess’s madness (Edmund Wilson).” And nothing that inspires so much interpretive interest could escape the many interpretations into other media: films, episodes of television, and much other literature.

Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Toy Dog” (1899) Widely acknowledged as one of Chekhov’s best stories, if not the best, and therefore almost no students get through their years at school without reading it. Has been adapted as a film, a ballet, a play, a musical, and most importantly, a Joyce Carol Oates short story.

W. W. Jacobs, “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902) So iconic—be careful what you wish for, is the gist—that you probably didn’t even know it started out as a short story. My favorite version is, of course, the Laurie Anderson song .

O. Henry, “The Gift of the Magi” (1905) According to Wikipedia, there have been 17 different film adaptations of O. Henry’s classic short story about a couple’s thwarted Christmas; the essential format—Della sells her hair to buy Jim a watch chain; Jim sells his watch to buy Della a set of combs—has been referenced and replicated countless times beyond that. I even heard Dax Shepard refer to this story on his podcast the other day, and so I rest my case.

James Joyce, “The Dead” (1914) The last story in Joyce’s collection Dubliners and one of the best short stories ever written; just ask anyone who wanted to have read some Joyce but couldn’t crack Ulysses . (Or anyone who could crack Ulysses too.) And let’s not forget the John Huston movie starring Anjelica Huston as Gretta.

Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” (1915) Everyone has to read this in school, at some point—which is probably the reason why it’s been parodied, referenced, and adapted many times in just about every format . And why not? What could be more universal than the story of the man who wakes up to find himself transformed into an enormous insect?

Richard Connell, “The Most Dangerous Game” aka “The Hounds of Zaroff” (1924) “The most popular short story ever written in English” is obviously the one about aristocrats hunting people. Widely adapted , but one of my favorite versions is the episode of Dollhouse in which a Richard Connell (no relation except the obvious) hunts Echo with a bow.

Ernest Hemingway, “The Killers” (1927) I was tempted to include “Hills Like White Elephants” because of the number of people forced to read it to learn about dialogue (happily, there are other options ), but “The Killers,” while less often anthologized, is more influential overall, and gave us not only two full length film adaptations and a Tarkovsky short but Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain,” which I do think is a very good story to learn from, if not for dialogue, then for story-making.

Zora Neale Hurston, “The Gilded Six-Bits” (1933) Hurston is most famous for Their Eyes Were Watching God , but those who know will tell you that this story of love, marriage, betrayal, and love again—which was also made into a 2001 film—is a classic, too.

Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” (1948) The short story that launched a thousand letters to The New Yorker —or if not a thousand , then at least “a torrent . . . the most mail the magazine had ever received in response to a work of fiction.” Still taught widely in schools, and still chilling.

J. D. Salinger, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (1948) The very first story to destroy many a young mind. In a good way, obviously.

Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950)

Bradbury’s work has thoroughly permeated pop culture; plenty of his stories are widely adapted and referenced, so I could have chosen a few others here (“The Veldt” is my personal favorite). But every year, the image of a smart house going on long after the death of its occupants becomes more chilling and relevant an image; we can’t help but keep going back to it.

Daphne du Maurier, “The Birds” (1952) I know it’s really the Hitchcock film adaptation that’s iconic, but you wouldn’t have the Hitchcock without the du Maurier.

Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1953) Another oft-assigned (and oft-argued-over) story, this one with so many title rip-offs .

Elmore Leonard, “Three-Ten to Yuma” (1953) I know, I know, it’s “Fire in the Hole” that gave us Justified , and we’re all so very glad. But “Three-Ten to Yuma” has more name recognition—after all, it was adapted into two separate and very good films, the former of which (1957) actually created contemporary slang : in Cuba, Americans are called yumas and the United States is La Yuma .

Philip K. Dick, “The Minority Report” (1956) As a whole, Philip K. Dick’s work has had massive influence on literature, film, pop culture, and our cultural attitudes toward technology. Most of his best-known works are novels, but when a short story gets made into a Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film, you’re basically assuring iconic status right there. (Or at least that’s how it used to work…)

James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” (1957) Baldwin’s best known short story pops up in plenty of anthologies, and can be thanked for being the gateway drug for many budding Baldwin acolytes.

Alan Sillitoe, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” (1959) Not only is the story itself widely known and read—just ask Rod Blagojevich ( remember him? )—that title has been rewritten and reused thousands of times for varying ends—just ask the reporter who wrote that piece about Blagojevich. Or Adrian Tomine .

John Cheever, “The Swimmer” (1964) Cheever’s most famous story nails something essential about the mid-century American sensibility, and particularly the mid-century American suburbs, which is probably why everyone knows it (it’s also frequently anthologized). Or maybe it’s more about Burt Lancaster’s little shorts ? Either way.

Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966) Another frequently anthologized and unwaveringly excellent short story; and look, it’s no one’s fault that Laura Dern turns everything she touches iconic.

Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson” (1972) Yet another story often assigned in schools (the good ones, anyway), which hopefully means one day we’ll wake up and find out that everyone has read it.

Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973) As others have pointed out before me , Le Guin’s most read and most famous short story is almost always chillingly relevant.

Donald Barthelme, “The School” (1974) This one might only be iconic for writers, but considering it’s one of the best short stories ever written (according to me), I simply couldn’t exclude it.

Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” (1978) Another staple of a writer’s education, and a reader’s; “are you really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” being a kind of bandied-about shibboleth.

Raymond Carver, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (1981) I struggled choosing a Carver story for this list—”Cathedral” is more important, and probably more read, but “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” has transcended its own form more completely, at least with its title, which has spawned a host of echoes, including Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running , and Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank , to the point that I think it’s recognizable to just about everyone. A quick Google search will reveal that the framing has been used for almost everything you can think of. There’s—and I kid you not—a What We Talk About When We Talk About Books/War/Sex/God/The Tube/Games/Rape/Money/Creative Writing/Nanoclusters/Hebrew/The Weather/Defunding the Police/Free Speech/Taxes/Holes/Climate/The Moon/Waste/Cancel Culture/Impeachment/Gender/Digital Inclusions/Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease/COVID-19 . You see what I’m getting at here.

Stephen King, “The Body” (1982) Otherwise known, to the general public, as Stand By Me .

Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” (1983) Want to feel bad about your writing? This was the first short story Amy Hempel ever wrote.

Lorrie Moore, “How to Be an Other Woman” (1985) A very very good short story that has given rise to so many bad ones.

Mary Gaitskill, “Secretary” (1988) Bad Behavior is iconic as a whole , but probably the story to have most acutely permeated the wider culture is “Secretary,” on account of the film adaptation starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader—despite the fact that it totally butchers the ending.

Amy Tan, “Rules of the Game” (1989) This story originally appeared in The Joy Luck Club , Tan’s mega-bestseller, so probably almost everyone you know has read it. The film version didn’t hurt either.

Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” (1990) Why, it’s only the most anthologized short story of the last 30(ish) years. That’s why even the people you know who haven’t picked up a book in their adult lives have read it.

Denis Johnson, “Emergency” (1992) When I left New York to go get my MFA, a friend gave me a copy of Jesus’ Son with the inscription “Because everyone in your MFA will talk about it and you don’t want to be the girl who hasn’t read it. (It’s also really good).” He was not wrong.

Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain” (1997) Everybody knows this story—even if they only know it from its (massively successful and influential, not to mention the true Best Picture Winner of 2006) film adaptation—and not for nothing, coming out when it did, it went a long way towards making some Americans more comfortable with homosexuality. Open the floodgates, baby.

Jhumpa Lahiri, “A Temporary Matter” (1998) The story that made Lahiri a household name.

Ted Chiang, “Story of Your Life” (1998) Otherwise known as Arrival . (Also technically a novella.)

Alice Munro, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” (2001) At this point, almost everyone has read at least some Alice Munro, right? This story is one of the best from one of the greats, and was also adapted into a fantastic but heartbreaking film, Away From Her .

Kristen Roupenian, “Cat Person” (2017) Sure, it’s recent, so it’s not quite as ingrained as some of the others here, but it’s also the story that broke the internet —and quite possibly the only New Yorker story that thousands of people have ever read.

Finally, as is often the case with lists that summarize the mainstream American literary canon of the last 200 years, it is impossible not to recognize that the list above is much too white and male. So for our future and continuing iconography, your friends at Literary Hub suggest reading the following stories, both new and old:

Eudora Welty, “Why I Live at the P.O.” (1941) Clarice Lispector, “The Imitation of the Rose” (1960) Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” (1969) Ralph Ellison, “Cadillac Flambé” (1973) Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” (1984) Bharati Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief” (1988) John Edgar Wideman, “Fever” (1990) Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek” (1991) Christine Schutt, “To Have and to Hold” (1996) ZZ Packer, “Brownies” (2003) Edward P. Jones, “Marie” (2004) Karen Russell, “Haunting Olivia” (2005) Kelly Link, “Stone Animals” (2005) Edwidge Danticat, “Ghosts” (2008) Yiyun Li, “A Man Like Him” (2008) Claire Vaye Watkins, “Ghosts, Cowboys” (2009) Ottessa Moshfegh, “Bettering Myself” (2013) Amelia Gray, “House Heart” (2013) Zadie Smith, “Meet the President!” (2013) Carmen Maria Machado, “The Husband Stitch” (2014) Diane Cook, “The Way the End of Days Should Be” (2014) Kirstin Valdez Quade, “Five Wounds” (2015) NoViolet Bulawayo, “Shhhh” (2015) Mariana Enriquez, “Spiderweb” (2016) Ken Liu, “State Change” (2016) Helen Oyeyemi, “Sorry Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” (2016) Lesley Nneka Arimah, “What Is a Volcano?” (2017) James McBride, “The Christmas Dance” (2017) Viet Thanh Nguyen, “War Years” (2017) Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, “Friday Black” (2018). . .

Honestly, this list could go on forever, but let’s stop and say: more short stories of all kinds in the hands of the general public, please!

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All payments by families must be made with a credit card. We will send a proof of the completed obituary before we require payment. The obituary cannot run, however, until we receive payment in full.

Obituaries can be submitted for any future date, but they must be received no later than 3:00 p.m. the day prior to its running for it to be published.

Please call the obituary desk, at 610-371-5018, for information on pricing.

Things To Do | Reading Community Players staging short plays…

Things To Do

Things to do | reading community players staging short plays by marabella; broadway on 6th series announced [spotlight], plus more local arts and culture news..

Laura Diann Stewart (left) and Amy J Young rehearse "The Window Seat," part of "Short Stage Stories: Rocky Road Ain't Always Sweet," a new collection of one-act plays written by Santo D. Marabella and being staged next weekend by Reading Community Players. (Courtesy of Martin R. McGowan)

The play is a compilation of five original plays by Marabella that emerged around his experience of the pandemic and the losses and the unprecedented challenges it brought.

The five short stories will be performed by a five-member ensemble featuring Susan Behm, Laura Diann Stewart, Tom Rader, Steve Reazor and Amy Young. It is produced by Nicole Genest.

Marabella said the challenges he has faced in the past four years include losing his parents, Anna and Sam, and his best buddy, Rafaelle, his 11½-year-old flat-coated retriever.

From his development as a writer, Marabella learned that in order to be authentic, it’s best to apply the sage advice “write what you know,” but this experience has taught him a new lesson. He’s learned to “write where you are,” even if that’s a darker place than you’re used to.

Reading Community Players, which has co-produced several of Marabella’s original works over the years, is excited about this project.

“We are looking forward to putting Santo’s work on the stage with the five very talented actors he has selected,” said Denise Darrah, RCP president. “Rocky Road will be another compelling production that complements our 2024 season.”

Marabella said the greatest challenge is “frankly, to tell these ‘heavy’ stories in an engaging and entertaining way.”

“No one wants to go to the theater to be depressed,” he added.

That’s why he chose to tell multiple stories around aspects of our humanity that many are experiencing by making them shorter and peppering them with humor.

Show times are Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m. and next Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 and $15 (seniors/students) and may be reserved by visiting https://reading-community-players.ticketleap.com/rocky-road/ .

Santander bookings

Broadway will return to the Santander Performing Arts Center in Reading for the 2024-2025 season, with performance of “STOMP,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Mean Girls,” “Ain’t Too Proud,” “Chicago” and the return of Mannheim Steamrollers. Single tickets will go on sale to the public May 16 at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster.com and in person at the venue box office at Santander Arena.

In addition, two other shows have been added to the schedule at the two downtown Reading venues. Comedian Jo Koy will bring his “Just Being Koy Tour” to Santander Arena on Nov. 16, and World Ballet Company will stage “The Nutcracker” on Nov. 30 at the Santander Performing Arts Center. Tickets for these two shows are on sale at santander-arena.com.

The Broadway series will kick off with “Stomp” on Oct. 16, followed by “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations” on Oct. 24, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas on Dec. 1, “Chicago” on Dec. 13, “Dear Evan Hansen” on Jan. 6 and “Mean Girls” on April 3.

Last Monday, the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg was filled with film industry representatives from across the state, including Cammie Harris, executive director of the Reading Film Office, to advocate for a $300 million film tax credit to preserve Pennsylvania’s long history in film.

Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Film Industry Association, the Greater Philadelphia Film Office and the Pittsburgh Film Office, the event kicked off a weeklong effort to emphasize the need for the increase.

Harris delivered a speech shedding light on Reading and Berks County’s role in Pennsylvania’s film landscape.

“When people think about Pennsylvania films, they often point to films made in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, but the film industry is so much broader than that,” she said.

She noted that Reading, the fourth largest city in Pennsylvania, is known for its vibrant art scene, which includes a talented community of filmmakers. She further emphasized that an increase in the rebate enables the Reading Film Office to attract larger-budget films, enhance work opportunities and increase tourism and spending within the region.

Harris highlighted the need for action, citing Pennsylvania’s decreasing competitiveness with neighboring states and international jurisdictions.

“We are competing domestically with other large cities and states which have their own incentive programs, many of which far exceed the current $100 million tax credit offered in Pennsylvania,” she said. “Increasing the film tax credit to $300 million keeps us on a level playing field with some of those jurisdictions and ensures that Pennsylvania remains competitive.”

Berks County Public Libraries has announced that visitors to the Reading Public Museum Arboretum and Berks Nature, The Nature Place can explore new children’s book titles at both StoryWalk displays ahead of the summer season. Titles at both locations will remain posted throughout the summer months and are available in English and Spanish.

The summer StoryWalk title at Berks Nature, “Rosa Explores the Water Cycle” by Jessica Spanyol, illustrates the discoveries of Rosa and her friends as they conduct simple experiments to learn about the water cycle and the effect it has on the weather. The StoryWalk title is currently available to read. Visitors are encouraged to plan their visit when The Nature Place is open.

The upcoming title at the museum’s StoryWalk trail, “Dragons Love Tacos,” will be installed later this month. The book follows the story of a young boy who holds a taco party for dragons and a warning on the dangers of spicy salsa. Written by Adam Rubin and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri, this storybook coincides with the museum’s upcoming dragon exhibits: “Scales of Gold, Wings of Jade: The Dragon in Art” and “The Lost World of Dragons.”

Berks County author Robin Gow is releasing a new middle-grade novel, “Gooseberry,” on Tuesday. The book is about a young nonbinary main character, B, searching for family and finding it with a sweet rescue dog.

“Gooseberry” is a heartwarming story by the acclaimed author of “Dear Mothman,” about found family, finding hope, and — most of all — finding and accepting yourself.

“Gooseberry” joins a long tradition of books about kids and their dogs, but takes a different approach, telling it from a trans perspective.

The story centers on the young nonbinary protagonist’s struggle to come up with a new name. Young readers who are questioning their gender or are figuring out their own identity will feel seen and appreciate the gentle and empathetic messages of this story.

Gow is a poet, educator and witch, and is a community educator on disability justice and LGBTQIA2+ issues.

Reading Civic Theatre will hold auditions for “South Pacific in Concert” June 9-11 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at its location in the former Fox East theater, Exeter Township.

Directed by Pete Bourey, the show will be performed with a live orchestra on Oct. 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. Strong, expressive vocalists are needed for lead roles and the ensemble.

The show includes favorites such as “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” and “There Is Nothing Like a Dame.” Go to readingcivic.org for more information.

The Brentano String Quartet will perform May 25 at the WCR Center for the Arts, Reading. (Courtesy of Jurgen Frank)

Chamber concert

The Friends of Chamber Music of Reading will present the final concert of the season featuring the Brentano String Quartet on May 25 at 7:30 p.m. in the WCR Center for the Arts, 140 N. Fifth St., Reading. The concert is free and no tickets are needed.

The group is making its 26th appearance in the Friends series. Described as “… passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding” by The Independent (London), the quartet brings another dynamic program, including works by Haydn and Mendelssohn, as well as Schoenberg’s Quartet Op. 10, No. 2, joined by acclaimed soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon.

The quartet has performed across five continents in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and the Sydney Opera House.

Dedicated and highly sought-after as educators, the quartet members are currently artists-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, where they perform in concert each semester, work closely with students in chamber music contexts and spearhead the instruction at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in the summers.

Noted for her “dazzling, virtuoso singing” ( Boston Globe ), soprano Fitz Gibbon is a dynamic musician whose repertoire spans the Renaissance to the present. She believes that creating new works and recreating those lost in centuries past makes room for the multiplicity and diversity of voices integral to classical music’s future. As such, she has given U.S. premieres of many rediscovered works by Baroque composers as well by 20th century composers.

For more information, see www.chambermusicreading.org .

The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles announced it will join museums nationwide in the Blue Star Museums initiative, a program that provides free admission to currently serving U.S. military personnel and their families this summer.

The program will begin Saturday, Armed Forces Day, and end on Labor Day. Blue Star Museums is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families, in collaboration with the Department of Defense and participating museums across America.

The free admission program is available for those currently serving in the United States Military: Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy and Space Force; members of the Reserves, National Guard, U.S. Public Health Commissioned Corps and NOAA Commissioned Corps; and up to five family members.

Qualified members must show a Geneva Convention common access card, DD Form 1173 ID card, DD Form 1173-1 ID card or the Next Generation Uniformed Services (Real) ID card for entrance into a participating Blue Star Museum. Learn more and find the list of all the participating museums at arts.gov/BlueStarMuseums .

The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles is open seven days a week, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, see boyertownmuseum.org .

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Why federal efforts to protect schools from cybersecurity threats fall short

I n August 2023, the White House announced a plan to bolster cybersecurity in K-12 schools – and with good reason. Between 2018 and mid-September 2023, there were 386 recorded cyberattacks in the U.S. education sector and cost those schools $35.1 billion. K-12 schools were the primary target.

The new White House initiative includes a collaboration with federal agencies that have cybersecurity expertise, such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and the FBI . Technology firms like Amazon, Google, Cloudflare, PowerSchool and D2L have pledged to support the initiative with training and resources.

While the steps taken by the White House are positive, as someone who teaches and conducts research about cybersecurity, I don’t believe the proposed measures are enough to protect schools from cyberthreats. Here are four reasons why:

1. Schools face more cyberthreats than other sectors

Cyberattacks on K-12 schools increased more than eightfold in 2022. Educational institutions draw the interest of cybercriminals due to their weak cybersecurity . This weak cybersecurity provides an opportunity to access networks containing highly sensitive information.

Criminals can exploit students’ information to apply for fraudulent government benefits and open unauthorized bank accounts and credit cards . In testimony to the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, a Federal Trade Commission official noted that children’s Social Security numbers are uniquely valuable because they have no credit history and can be paired with any name and date of birth. Over 10% of children enrolled in an identity protection service were discovered to have loans .

Cybercriminals can also use such information to launch ransomware attacks against schools. Ransomware attacks involve locking up a computer or its files and demanding payment for their release. The ransomware victimization rate in the education sector surpasses that of all other surveyed industries , including health care, technology, financial services and manufacturing.

Schools are especially vulnerable to cyberthreats because more and more schools are lending electronic devices to students. Criminals have been found to hide malware within online textbooks and essays to dupe students into downloading it. Should students or teachers inadvertently download malware onto school-owned devices, criminals can launch an attack on the entire school network.

When faced with such an attack, schools can be desperate to comply with criminals’ demands to ensure students’ access to learning .

2. Schools lack cybersecurity personnel

K-12 schools’ poor cybersecurity performance can be attributed, in part, to lack of staff. About two-thirds of school districts lack a full-time cybersecurity position. Those with cybersecurity staff often don’t have the budget for a chief information security officer to oversee and manage the district’s strategy. Often, the IT director takes on this role , but they have a broader responsibility for IT operations without a specific emphasis on security.

3. Schools lack cybersecurity skills

The lack of cybersecurity skills among existing staff hinders the development of strong cybersecurity programs.

Only 10% of educators say that they have a deep understanding of cybersecurity. The majority of students say that they have minimal or no knowledge about cybersecurity. Cybersecurity awareness tends to be even lower in higher-poverty districts , where students have less access to cybersecurity education.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency plans to provide cybersecurity training to an additional 300 K-12 schools, school districts and other organizations involved in K-12 education in the forthcoming school year. With 130,930 K-12 public schools and 13,187 public school districts in the U.S., CISA’s plan serves only a tiny fraction of them.

4. Inadequate funding

The FCC has proposed a pilot program that would allocate $200 million over three years to boost cyberdefenses. With an annual budget of $66.6 million, this falls short of covering the entirety of cybersecurity costs, given that it will cost an estimated $5 billion to adequately secure the nation’s K-12 schools.

The costs encompass hardware and software procurement, consulting, testing, and hiring data protection experts to combat cyberattacks. Frequent training is also needed to respond to evolving threats. As technology advances, cybercriminals adapt their methods to exploit vulnerabilities in digital systems. Teachers must be ready to address such risks.

Costs are sizable

How much should schools and districts be spending on cybersecurity? Other sectors can serve as a model to guide K-12 schools.

One way to determine cybersecurity funding is by the number of employees. In the financial services industry, for example, these costs range from $1,300 to $3,000 per full-time employee. There are over 4 million teachers in the United States. Setting cybersecurity spending at $1,300 per teacher – the low end of what financial firms spend – would require K-12 schools to spend a total of $5 billion.

An alternate approach is to determine cybersecurity funding relative to IT spending. On average, U.S. enterprises are estimated to spend 10% of their IT budgets on cybersecurity. Since K-12 schools were estimated to spend more than $50 billion on IT in the 2020-21 fiscal year, allocating 10% to cybersecurity would also require them to spend $5 billion.

Another approach is to allocate cybersecurity spending as a proportion of the total budget. In 2019, cybersecurity spending represented 0.3% of the federal budget. Federal, state and local governments collectively allocate $810 billion for K-12 education. If schools set cybersecurity spending at 0.3%, following the example of federal agencies, that would require an annual budget of $2.4 billion.

By contrast, a fifth of schools dedicate less than 1% of their IT budgets – not their entire budgets – to cybersecurity. In 12% of school districts , there is no allocation for cybersecurity at all.

The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and the SolarWinds hack were all but inevitable – why national cyber defense is a ‘wicked’ problem
Israel’s military reservists are joining protests – potentially transforming a political crisis into a security crisis

Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The cost of safeguarding America's schools from cybercriminals could run as high as $5 billion.

Finalist for Missouri State president on short list to lead New Mexico flagship campus

One of the frontrunners to succeed Clif Smart as president of Missouri State is also on the short list to lead another university.

Richard "Biff" Williams, former president of Utah Tech University, was named a finalist Friday for president of New Mexico State University, one of the state's flagship campuses. Its enrollment, across the system, is comparable to Missouri State.

Williams is one of three finalists — along with John Jasinski and Roger Thompson — to serve as Missouri State's 12th president. He is slated to visit the Springfield and West Plains campuses in mid-February.

He is one of five finalists for New Mexico State University's top job. That institution's Board of Regents announced the names in a special meeting Friday . The others include:

Michael Galyean, distinguished professor in the Department of Veterinary Sciences and former provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Texas Tech University;
Wayne Jones, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Hampshire;
Austin Lane, chancellor of Southern Illinois University;
John Volin, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University of Maine.

Williams served as president of Utah Tech University — previously Dixie State University — from 2014 through early 2024.

He added more than 100 academic programs during his tenure, including the first graduate degrees. He also grew student enrollment by 50% and expanded the footprint of the university.

Williams steered the university through a name change and the move to Division I athletics, where its identity was rebranded as the Trailblazers in 2016.

Under his leadership, the university nearly doubled its scholarship funds and increased the salaries of teachers and staff. He oversaw major construction projects including the new Science, Engineering & Technology building, a new grandstand, a Human Performance Center and the first new on-campus student housing in 50 years.

Previously, he served as provost and vice president for academic affairs and was the founding dean of the College of Nursing, Health and Human Services at Indiana State University.

More: Missouri State University releases names of 3 finalists in search for next president

He also was associate dean of the College of Education at the University of Northern Iowa, where he was a faculty member, executive associate director of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services, and Athletic Training department chair.

He has a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State University, master’s degree in athletic training from Indiana State University and a bachelor’s degree in lifestyle management from Weber State University.

In a news release, board chair Ammu Devasthali said campus visits from each candidate will begin in late February. “We look forward to getting to know each of the candidates and learning how they fit our vision for the next leader of the NMSU system."

The NMSU search involved contracting with a national firm. The search conducted by Missouri State, which was also national in scope, was led by a 20-member committee made up of students, faculty, staff, alumni, university administrators, community and board members.

In all, 48 candidates completed applications for the university's top job. The applicants were not publicly named.

Following an extensive review, 11 candidates were invited to interview in person Jan. 3-5 at a Kansas City airport hotel. The university said the pool was diverse "in terms of race, sex, age, geographic region, institutional size, and professional background."

Smart plans to step down this summer. Missouri State hopes to name his successor by March.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee falls short on details about school vouchers expansion

Gov. bill lee did not make the case at his state of the state address for how expanding school vouchers will be fiscally responsible and make students successful..

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee must persuade citizens – and a majority of legislators – that growing investments in public schools and expanding school vouchers statewide can be successfully achieved at the same time.

I’m not sure he did that Monday at his annual State of the State address at the Tennessee State Capitol.

He did not go beyond generalities and anecdotes. He did not go far enough to assuage the critics that include Democratic and some Republican lawmakers, school superintendents, and public education activists who fear that his plan will come at the expense of public schools.

Expanding the Education Savings Account program from three counties – Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton – to all 95 counties is a key priority for him in 2024. Eventually, he wants any family – regardless of income – to be able to apply to receive $7,075 in taxpayer money to pay for tuition and other costs for private or parochial schools or home schooling. He couches it as an issue of parental prerogative and school choice.

Currently, 2,400 students are eligible for the ESA. That would grow to 20,000 in the 2024-25 school year under Lee’s plan. There are nearly 1 million public school students.

“Some are concerned that more choices for families could mean fewer resources for public schools, but that is simply not true,” he said Monday.

He offered no specifics on how much the program will ultimately cost, where in the budget the money will come from and how taxpayers will know they are getting a return on investment on this return. He did not offer specifics on future public school investments either.

Lee should address criticism over the budget and student achievement

The ESA program so far has not shown that students do better, per state Senate testimony from Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds . A recent guest opinion by a Michigan State University professor warned that voucher programs create “broken budgets” and “record-low academic failures.”

State of the State addresses are typically political speeches where governors can tout their successes and frame debates on issues they care about. It also allows a chief executive to point to people they invited to the speech to show they have benefited from their policies. On Monday, Lee introduced the viewing public to Arieale Munson and her two sons, Nigel and Steven, as examples of ESA successes.

Yet, assuming that the family has experienced success – and hopefully they have – this one example doesn’t address the broader questions that need to be answered by a voucher expansion.

When Lee sought to change the funding formula for public schools, he was able to build on statewide discontent over the old Basic Education Program (BEP). While the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement of 2022 had its critics, there were a lot of good reasons to update the formula.

Political philosophy is winning the debate over details

Right now, because of the lack of details, the voucher expansion appears to be solely about experimentation with a political philosophy about how the public’s dollars should be used on education.

Last November, Governor Lee introduced his plan at the Tennessee State Capitol with the help of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders , previously former President Trump’s press secretary. “There is an absolute conservative education revolution in our country,” Huckabee Sanders said.

At his address Monday, Lee said: “It’s time that parents get to decide – and not the government – where their child goes to school and what they learn.”

This felt to me like a radical statement that flies in the face of tested, researched and evaluated state curriculum.

At the same time, Governor Lee said he promised to invest more in public education and work to retain teachers. He mentioned that his own children and grandchildren are products of public school education.

As this debate continues in the legislature, the public deserves to know specifics and not just talking points.

The governor owes parents all the information so they can make the best decision possible for their children

And he owes taxpayers details about how their return on investment will come in the form of higher achieving students.

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters.. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at [email protected] or tweet to him at @davidplazas .

The Cornell Daily Sun - Independent Since 1880

The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/2024/05/09/breaking-president-pollack-to-retire-after-seven-years-of-leadership/)

Julia Nagel/Sun Senior Photographer

President Martha Pollack served as the 14th president of Cornell.

May 9, 2024

Breaking: president pollack to retire after seven years of leadership, by julia senzon and anushka shorewala | may 9, 2024.

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President Martha Pollack announced that she will retire from her position on June 30, in an email sent to the Cornell community on Thursday, May 9.

Provost Michael Kotlikoff will serve as interim president for a two-year term beginning on July 1, 2024, according to a follow-up email sent by Kraig Kayser MBA ’84, chair of the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees will establish a committee to select the University’s 15th president six to nine months before Kotlikoff’s term ends.

Pollack acknowledged that there “will be lots of speculation about [her] decision” and emphasized that she independently decided to retire from her role after “extensive reflection.”

Pollack’s retirement follows a year of campus controversies spurred from the Israel-Hamas war, including Prof. Russell Rickford, history, saying that he was “exhilarated” by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Patrick Dai ’24 posting antisemitic threats.

Throughout the year, the Coalition for Mutual Liberation — a pro-Palestine coalition of over 40 on and off-campus organizations — occupied Day Hall, held die-ins in libraries and other campus buildings and established an encampment on the Arts Quad. Demonstrators urged the University to divest from weapons manufacturers, advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza, acknowledge Islamophobia on campus and cease educational ties with Israeli institutions.

The administration has condemned the disruptive nature of demonstrations, labeled some of the organization’s language as antisemitic and arrested and suspended demonstrators.

Pollack acknowledged the “enormous pain” felt by community members due to world turmoil and local tensions , including for Jewish and Israeli students and Arab, Palestinian and Muslim students. She acknowledged that the next Cornell administration will have to continue to address antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry, while protecting free expression, but asserted that the next leaders will work from a “solid foundation.”

“We have been vigilant in working to ensure the safety and well-being of all members of our community from all backgrounds, work I’ve been dedicated to long before the events of the past year,” Pollack wrote.

However, Muslim students have previously expressed to The Sun concerns about a lack of an administrative response to concerns about online threats and intimidation on campus. This includes how several derogatory messages toward Muslim students were posted on Greekrank on Oct. 29, in addition to antisemitic threats, but the University addressed only the antisemitic posts in an Oct. 29 press release.

The academic year has seen some university presidents, including Claudine Gay of Harvard University and Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, step down amid backlash for their response to antisemitism on campus.

In January, former trustee Jon Lindseth ’56 published an open letter urging Pollack and Kotlikoff’s resignation, citing the University’s failure to appropriately address antisemitism on campus amid a “misguided commitment” to diversity, equity and inclusion. However, the Board of Trustees unanimously voted in support of Pollack’s leadership in response to the letter.

This approval for Pollack has sustained into the announcement of her retirement. As of Thursday morning, the Board of Trustees appointed Pollack as president emerita, an honorary title given to a retired leader, effective July 1, 2024.

“On a personal level, all my fellow trustees and I have enjoyed working with President Pollack and have valued her intelligence, integrity, candor and warmth,” Kayser wrote.

Pollack also emphasized her success with furthering her initial goals for her leadership — “enhancing Cornell’s academic distinction, our educational verve and the fulfillment of our civic responsibility.”

Pollack oversaw the creation of the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, the establishment of COVID-19 pandemic policies and the allocation of increased financial aid, among many other accomplishments.

Pollack considered retiring over the past academic year but chose not to announce the decision earlier due to unforeseen circumstances, according to her email.

“Indeed, I began deliberating about this last fall, and made the decision over the December break; but three times, as I was ready to act on it, I had to pause because of events on our and/or on other campuses,” Pollack wrote.

The Sun was scheduled to interview Pollack — along with Kotlikoff, Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi and Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina — on Friday, May 10. However, the interview was postponed until after Aug. 1, according to an email from Rebecca Valli, senior director of Cornell Media Relations.

The email was sent less than a half hour after Pollack announced her retirement, despite the interview having been coordinated since April 18.

Update, 5/9, 4:40 p.m.: This article has been updated to include more information about President Martha Pollack’s leadership and retirement.

Chris Pan gave bizarre Ohio State commencement address — here's who he was picked over

Michelle Obama, Lizzo, LeBron James, Michael Phelps and Trevor Noah topped the list of prospective speakers for Ohio State University's 2024 spring commencement ceremony , according to commencement speaker recommendation lists obtained by The Dispatch.

Absent from those lists was Chris Pan, the social entrepreneur and Ohio State alum who was ultimately selected to deliver the commencement address. Pan was listed as a possible Ohio State commencement speaker for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, but not for the 2024 spring commencement.

Higher education: Ohio State graduates show solidarity for Palestine, tragedy over death during commencement

VIDEO: Buckeye Nation shamed by Chris Pan's awful commencement speech

Pan delivered a polarizing speech during Sunday's spring commencement ceremony that some on social media called disrespectful, embarrassing and bizarre.

The speech included two brief musical numbers, to "What's Going On?" by the 4 Non Blondes and "This Little Light of Mine" written by Harry Dixon Loes — and espoused how he thinks Bitcoin is "a very misunderstood asset class," which was met by groans from audience members. (He promised everyone in attendance a free bracelet from his company, MyIntent, "as an apology for listening to me talk about Bitcoin.").

Pan said before Sunday that he was high on ayahuasca, a psychedelic liquid made from heating or boiling multiple psychoactive plants from South America, while drafting his speech , according to posts on his LinkedIn and Instagram accounts. Pan also said he tried using ChatGPT and artificial intelligence to write his speech.

"Got some help from AI (Ayahuasca Intelligence) this week to write my commencement speech for 60k grads and family members at Ohio State University next Sunday," he wrote in a LinkedIn post before graduation.

How did Pan end up being chosen to be commencement speaker?

Many have questioned how and why Pan ended up being chosen to give the spring commencement address in the first place.

Ohio State President Ted Carter told reporters on Wednesday that Pan was on a nomination list of possible commencement speakers dating back to 2019.

According to the 2019-2020 commencement speaker recommendations, Pan was listed as a possible speaker for OSU's summer and winter graduation ceremonies. He was listed again the following year for summer and winter graduations. Pan had not been a recommended speaker for any commencement ceremonies since.

Ohio State spokesman Ben Johnson said the process for selecting a speaker is cumulative and speakers can be drawn from previous recommendations.

"The Office of the President, Commencement and Special Events makes the final decision to match potential speakers with spring, summer or autumn commencement based on a variety of factors, including speaker availability," Johnson said.

How are Ohio State's commencement speakers selected?

The selection process for who will be Ohio State's spring commencement speaker begins the previous winter.

The university charges a Commencement Speaker Advisory Committee , compromised of a rotating list of students and employees, with developing a slate of potential speakers for its December, May, and August Commencement ceremonies.

An online nomination portal is open year-round. This year's final slate of speaker recommendations was drawn from nominations submitted between Feb. 1, 2022, and Jan. 31, 2023.

Next, the Commencement Speaker Advisory Committee reviews the nominations and provides feedback on them. The committee meets to discuss nominations and share any additional comments. Final recommendations were made by the committee on Feb. 15, 2023.

While all three of the university's graduation ceremonies draw thousands of graduates and their guests, spring commencement holds special significance.

"Given the importance of the May Commencement as a major event for the university, the committee will seek to identify a slate of speakers of national or international stature befitting a ceremony celebrating 10,000+ graduates," according to the committee's website.

Potential speakers, according to the committee, should be or have the following qualities:

A good public speaker;
In a position to deliver a meaningful message with relevance for our graduating students;
A leader in their field or linked to important and compelling issues;
Name recognition (especially for May Commencement);
Core values consistent with those of Ohio State’s mission, vision, and values.

Who was recommended to speak at Ohio State's spring commencement?

According to this year's commencement speaker recommendations, the committee developed its short list of speakers using the following characteristics: "Dynamic and energizing; someone who has an important message to share, humble; down to earth, evokes emotion, builds on good logic, relevance of character; well-rounded, energetic, experienced speaker; celebrates students; well known; authentic; natural and conversational; short, concise, and to the point."

While many people were listed as prospective speakers, it is unclear whether any were offered to speak or were available and willing to do so.

This year's committee said former First Lady Michelle Obama was its No. 1 pick for May graduation, as she "outperformed other nominations in terms of interest" and was "almost two times as popular" as other nominees.

Her husband, former U.S. President Barack Obama, gave the spring commencement speech in 2013.

Two speakers who appear on both lists were Harvard Professot Mahzarin Banaji and NBA player and Akron native LeBron James. Both "should be prioritized for the May commencement but would also be suitable speakers for the August and December commencement ceremonies," the committee said.

"There was strong interest in LeBron James, so he was placed high on both lists, with the understanding that his availability may be challenging for certain ceremonies while he is still playing in the NBA (playoffs)," the committee said.

Three committee members said U.S. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps "would carry a strong message for young graduates, especially regarding mental health and resilience."

One of the student members "noted that the graduates of the August and December commencement ceremonies deserve as notable of speakers as the May commencement ceremony, and that there shouldn’t necessarily be a distinction between the ceremonies."

Committee members also recognized that a student voice at graduation, either in introducing the commencement speaker or in giving a short speech themselves, "would be deeply empowering."

Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here .

[email protected]

@sheridan120

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