Sublime

This is destroying our sense-making, at a time when we need it the most.

It is simply not conceivable that 22%–70% of our population has a reading disability. What is clear is that students who do not thrive in first, second, and third grade continue to struggle through adulthood.

I felt like everywhere I went, I was surrounded by people who were broadcasting but not receiving. Narcissism, it occurred to me, is a corruption of attention—it’s where your attention becomes turned in only on yourself and your own ego.

we are all living through something like a denial-of-service attack on our minds.

I found it startling to discover that you can throw out almost everything we regard as schooling—all the testing, all the assessments, even formal teaching—and still produce people who can read, write, and function in society. This tells you how much of what we are neurotically putting our kids through is pointless (at best).

Literature and old-style contemplative reading seem enfeebled—almost as if they need to be argued for, helped along by the elbow.