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Educational mores continue to change, just like our schoolrooms, and we should evolve with them. (Image via Wikimedia Commons.)

Why I love it when teenagers push back: one teacher’s politics in a 2020 classroom

Classrooms change and we should change with them

Michelle Nugent absorbed a commitment to neutrality during her own education as a teacher. But here’s why she’s leaving it behind in today’s classroom.

Michelle Nugent

Oct 19, 2020 Essays 5 minute read

A hippie before the term was invented. (Photo: Daisy Fried.)

Remembering writer Jim Quinn, Philadelphia’s apostle of change

He did it his way

In a bleak conformist city where nothing seemed to change, lately everything has changed. The fiercely brilliant critic Jim Quinn deserves some of the credit. Dan Rottenberg remembers his colleague Jim Quinn.

Dan Rottenberg

Oct 13, 2020 Essays 6 minute read

Writer Kelly Conrad at home with the poets who inspire her. (Photo courtesy of the writer.)

During Filipino American History Month and beyond, poetry offers a rare non-colonial lens

Resistance through poetry

The Filipino poetic tradition in English has defiant roots in the American occupation of the Philippines in the 1900s. In honor of Filipino American History Month, Kelly Conrad explores history and self-identity through the rare non-colonial lens of Filipino poetry.

Kelly Conrad

Oct 12, 2020 Essays 5 minute read

Can you cut the cake and still get your money back? (Photo by Ali Eminov, via Flickr.)

Are you displacing your rage in the age of COVID?

The great crooked cake crisis

For some, pandemic life brings out extra kindness and patience. But as Roz Warren tells it, others are looking for a target for their anger.

Roz Warren

Oct 05, 2020 Essays 4 minute read

It’s easy to see when the world stopped. (Photo by Fredricka Maister.)

Here's how one person over 60 is handling life in quarantine, eight months later

Eight months on the coronacoaster

Fredricka Maister optimistically began quarantine back in March, like millions of others in her higher-risk age group. But what does life look like eight months later?

Fredricka R. Maister

Oct 05, 2020 Essays 5 minute read

Noting exclusions in Philly monuments: Sharon Hayes’s 2017 ‘If They Should Ask,’ part of Monument Lab. (Photo by Steve Wenik, courtesy of Temple University Press.)

UPenn’s Arthur Ross Gallery hosts ‘Monuments and Social Justice’

Watch this space

In late September, Arthur Ross Gallery hosted a virtual conversation about the state of public art, looking to the past, present, and future of Philly monuments. Pam Forsythe listened in.

Pamela J. Forsythe

Sep 29, 2020 Essays 4 minute read

It’s not what she expected, but Roz is raising a mug to retirement. (Image courtesy of the author.)

I lost my library job because I refused to work with the public in the pandemic

Grab your books and go

After decades behind the circulation desk, Roz Warren didn’t feel safe going back to work in the pandemic.

Roz Warren

Sep 08, 2020 Essays 4 minute read

At the arcade, a young “DAN” imagined being a superhero, but adulthood brought surprising changes. (Photo by Arcade Perfect, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Here’s what my blindness made me realize about superheroes

Reinventing the hero

Danie Jackson grew up loving superheroes, but a changing career and coping with vision loss brought a new perspective on helping and accepting help.

Danie Jackson

Sep 08, 2020 Essays 5 minute read

The author, her partner, and their housemate bless challah—made from a family recipe—on a recent Friday. (Image courtesy of the author.)

Here’s how my Jewish great-grandparents’ Philly bakery lives in me today

The food chain

While braiding and baking the Friday challah, Anndee Hochman imagines her great-grandmother’s journey from Russia. What did she carry with her? Are those things alive today?

Anndee Hochman

Sep 01, 2020 Essays 4 minute read

Offering effective care and compassion means being ready to do it again and again. (Photo by Alaina Johns.)

What being a caregiver in the pandemic taught me about real revolution

When anger isn’t enough

Before the pandemic hit, Michelle Nugent defined herself by her work as a teacher and writer. But a necessary shift to caregiving taught her more about our moment than she expected.