In the last few weeks, I've been intentionally trying to avoid reading the sort of short-term daily outrages that force a narrowing of perspective. Although I believe deeply that we should all stay informed, events are moving fast enough that it's hard to see whether today's outrage is a nuanced portrait or just a tiny detail on a complex landscape. Perspective will come with time. So I decided to (almost) completely avoid politics in the pieces I chose to share this month, while also being aware that politics has infused almost every aspect of our lives, especially for women and historically oppressed people.
Music
The only thing I don't love about Ted Gioia’s column is how often he locks it down to paid subscribers, but a guy gotta make a living. I am so thankful he made this important piece public. Technology always makes fundamental changes to how we interact with art, and streaming technology has rocked the very foundation of the art of music. This piece is about Gen Z, but I have noticed my own listening changing dramatically in response to this technological change as well.
And then a different point of view: while mainstream writers like Gioia notice the changes from an industry perspective, others notice more subtle cultural trends. All is not lost!
Education
In my day job, I’m known as Prof. Suki, educator of mostly homeschooled students in online courses. I’ve been in education in one form or another since grad school, but it wasn’t until I become The World’s Most Reluctant Homeschooler, courtesy of my younger child, that I really understood the problems with mainstream approaches to education. I loved this piece by Freddie deBoer, which picks apart data to show that our education establishment is paying attention to all the wrong things. I wrote a more in-depth response to this piece on KidsLearn.
More about technology’s influence on the young, in this case, on their reading. I was struck years ago by a study that showed that children growing up in homes with visibly displayed books showed better academic achievement. The kicker was that they didn’t necessarily read more than other kids, which was confusing. But as James Marriott writes here, “Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life.” Reading ebooks, unless you have a dedicated ebook reader, doesn’t solve the distraction problem for kids. A nice ol’ musty-smelling stack of wood pulp does the job.
A nuanced view of the lives of women
Like I said, everything women do, including insisting on asserting our humanity, is political. I love all three of these pieces, especially the last by Mike Underell, a writer new to me this month. He writes about being a man for a male audience, so it was so lovely to get validation of a common male attribute that we women talk about all the time. So many men who assert their love of women really can’t let themselves the whole of any woman. We are complex, we are perplexing, we are human. Only when men truly grasp that can they have an equally rewarding relationship with us.
Father and daughter
Paul Crenshaw is a wonderful personal essayist. He never fails to delve deep enough to draw blood, but finding humanity and grace instead.
Thanks for reading!
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