Midlife Meditation

He was barely more than a child. Michael Brown was 18, just days from starting technical college. He'd been in trouble, off and on, throughout his short life. He played pranks. He shoplifted. He roughhoused. And a few weeks before he was shot to death by a police officer for jaywalking, he had a religious experienced inspired by seeing the sun break through the clouds over Ferguson. He was barely more than a child. Most of my teaching experience has been with elementary aged children, but I've had a few years in middle school and high school settings, enough to see the continuity of development across the age spectrum. The earnestness and enthusiasm of the very young grows into the passion of young adulthood; at the same time, the seeds of prankishness and irony can be manifested as early as kindergarten. Teenagers, I've learned, are just big kids: passionate, sensitive, fixated on inconsequentials, worried about their friends and families, narcissistic, generous, s...

Have you checked Facebook lately? That's a silly question. If you're reading this, you probably came to it via the link I posted on Facebook. So for all of us who spend reasonable to large chunks of time on Facebook, here's an observation: there's been a lot about the death of Robin Williams. I've clicked on some of it. I even contributed to it with an essay of my own.  It's understandable many of us would be affected by this great artist's tragic death. One also has to wonder, though, whether it's getting maybe a bit too much attention, especially when, in some outlets, it's crowded out coverage of what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. That seems to be abating: a cursory glance at my Facebook feed just now (though please note that my friends list is rather heavily weighted with progressive activists) revealed more Ferguson than Williams links. Perhaps it's just people getting past their momentary obsession with a celebrity's dea...