Mental Health Awareness spelled out in Scrabble tiles

A Disastrous Way to Start Mental Health Awareness Month

It is May 1st, the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month and what headline did I wake up to? This: Trump admin stops grant funding for school mental health : NPR. The grants came from the Safer Communities Act which was a bipartisan law passed in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting. Republicans…

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The Ninth First Day of School

I have a tradition of sorts here at Nutmegger Daily. Every year, I write a blog post about my kid’s first day of school. Or, more accurately, about my feelings on my kid’s first day of school. Prior entries can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. If there is one…

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A stack of books

The Eighth First Day of School

I know I’m a few days late with this post, but life has been crazy lately. Every year, I write a little post about my kid’s first day of school and what’s going through my mind. (Past entries can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) For the second year in a…

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The Mental Health Crisis: Can School Help Prevent Mental Illness?

Louie Lang wrote an article in Phlexible Philosophy entitled “An Education Based on Happiness” (Full disclosure, I also write for Phlexible Philosophy.). The premise is that we need a shift of emphasis in education away from career-oriented education and towards a happiness education. That will go a long way towards stopping the mental health crisis….

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The Seventh First Day of School

Today is my kid’s first day of middle school. Sixth grade. Crazy. Every year, I mark the first day of school with some musings. (If you want, you can read about the other six first days of school here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Nothing big, just what’s going through my mind as my…

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Trying to Understand Spacetime

My favorite book as a kid was A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I found the book in the library of my elementary school, and the back cover’s mention of black holes, my favorite space object, immediately drew me to it. I must have read that book a hundred times between the 4th…

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2022

As they have bee for pretty much everyone, the last couple of years have been difficult. Even before the pandemic began, 2020 saw one of my dreams become a nightmare. I’d always imagined myself as a teacher, but when I was put in charge of a classroom for the first time, I realized that I…

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You know, you could just NOT pay your student loans

People on the internet, or at least the small cross-section of Twitter I see on a regular basis, seem pretty upset that President Joe Biden has reneged on his pledge to cancel at least some student debt. President Biden said publicly several times that he would “knock off” at least $10,000 in student debt, and…

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The Sixth First Day of School

Each year, I mark my daughter’s first day of school with a blog post. (You can see past ones here, here, here, here, and here). She started fifth grade today. Her last year of elementary school. That’s crazy. But, much like last year, school and grades and things like that aren’t uppermost in my mind…

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What’s the Hurry?

I got an email from the superintendent of the West Hartford Public Schools informing me that the school system will be fully reopening on March 17th. Saint Patrick’s Day. Next week. I’m utterly baffled. What’s changed? None of the kids are vaccinated yet. Most of their parents aren’t vaccinated yet. People are still dying of…

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