We hold tightly to the idea of a public education system in the United States because while rich kids have been getting an education forever, poor kids have historically remained uneducated. Americans think of the public education system as the insurance that we truly live in a meritocracy where hard-working kids can rise above their family’s […]

My kids asked me if I’m voting for Donald Trump. I could give a million reasons why the answer is no, but I wanted to give a thoughtful answer that would generate a conversation. So I said, “No. I don’t think he supports community.”

This is a guest post from Erin Wetzel. She is a artist who lives in Tacoma WA and homeschools her daughter. You can connect with her on Instagram @ekwetzel. One of the joys of not sending my daughter to preschool is that we are together constantly, bugging each other to death.

This is a guest post by Ira Chaleff, author of the book Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told To Do Is Wrong.  The project of the book, Intelligent Disobedience, began when I found that guide dogs for the blind are first taught all commands they need to know, and then are sent for higher […]

The title of today’s post was a title of one of the sections of Time magazine’s issue about questions. My first thought when I read the article was my mom’s answer when I asked her why she married my dad if she didn’t love him: “When I was in college you had to get married after […]

I don’t have a daughter, but I did have Melissa living with me for long time. That made me feel a little bit like she was my daughter, and when she left, she made herself a page on my site, which I love to look at when I’m feeling nostalgic.

I learned about breaking rules from William Safire. He wrote On Language, a column for the New York Times. I felt really grown up reading the New York Times in college, but the truth is all I read was that and the Book Review.

This is a guest post from Amber Kane. She is a creativity educator and textile designer. Summer is coming to an end. Teachers have prepared their rooms and are sitting in painful in-service meetings, while students scour local stores for way-too-many back to school supplies.

The back-to-school routine is something that consumes all of September because it’s such a drastic change for the family. The Humane Society reports that family members are so overly stressed during this process that family pets also become stressed.

I’m fascinated with call centers. This started when I was in my 20s, running a software call center. I was in marketing, but I saw that there was no one really running the call center. So I told the CEO I could run the call center.  I promised him I could decrease customer service costs 20% […]

© 2023 Penelope Trunk