JA Missives

Essays

  • Growing Humans: Taylor Swift’s Bread, and AI

    Since everything seems to come back to Taylor Swift and AI these days, I’m going to leverage them to talk about what I think the purpose of school is. Let’s talk about the tricky business of letting temperamental things grow (focus on the bread in this image, not Taylor), and also, about being human, (not…

  • How to Be a Warrior for Childhood

    2020 I spent an hour and half today talking with second graders about teeth; from lost tooth traditions all around the world, to the difference between incisors and canines. (Yes, we did this all on Zoom.) When I told them that their teeth transitions would linger into their twenties (wisdom teeth), they seemed surprised–I sort…

  • Parent Partnerships

    2011 was another year full of undulating parenting advices. Amy Chua sang her battle hymn as a ‘tiger mother’ this year, Lori Gottleib told you ‘ how to land your kids in therapy’, while the echo of Po Bronson’s ‘Nurture Shock’, or even our old friends Alife Kohn and Wendy Mogel still contribute to our…