What Was I Thinking?

I have been hoping for an opportunity to sit down and write about this topic I have had on my mind for a while now, and today the opportunity has arrived, because Stacey McCarter is in the office for the day to relieve some of the burden that has happily fallen upon us of responding to all the recent inquiries about our wonderful school. In his capacity as registrar, Nathan McFarland has been extremely busy responding to all these inquiries and Jen Lynch has a very busy job already, so Mrs. Lange and I have been doing a little front desk duty and some substituting for sick teachers as well as our usual "stuff" and my blog has been ignored. Today I plan to remedy this. There has been a lot of buzz lately in and out of educational circles about the effect of digital technology on our young people. A recent issue of an educational periodical I subscribe to used the term 'screenagers' to describe adolescents who spend hours a day online, on their phones, on in front of a ...

This past Friday I went to the office of Stanley J. Miller, M.D., P.A. for some Mohs micrographic surgery on my left temple where a basal cell carcinoma had been identified. Dr. Miller said that this kind of skin cancer was not the kind that could spread to other parts of my body, but that it did have roots that could grow down below the surface of my skin and do damage to the muscle and bone tissue below. He removed the affected area, checked it under a microscope, pronounced that he had gotten all of the roots, then sewed me up. I really didn't need another hole in my head. I tried to imagine what these roots looked like. I have done my share of uprooting trees and other plants in my lifetime, so I know what those kinds of roots look like, and I know how difficult it can be to completely remove them. I remember pulling up the roots to some sort of weedy plant only to discover that the roots had spread all throughout the yard and were connected to other weedy plants that needed to...