Over Time
From above the fireplace, Headmaster Field’s view of Straus Library then (mid-1950s) and now
Read MoreLove of Language
Miltonians love language, whether in the form of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Cheever’s short stories or Lady Gaga’s lyrics. The natural adoption of new words and the fading of old ones is evident in listening to today’s students. Their rapid repartee incorporates irony, humor and emotion as they chatter in the hallways or hang out in the Student Center. No surprise: Milton students have developed a few words and phrases to claim as their own. Milton Made miz |miz| adjective – a shortened version of miserable, the worst possible: Mr. Smith assigned us a 10-page paper today. That’s...
Read More5 Voices from History
A daily pleasure of mine is listening as students react to the primary texts we read in class. Though the vocabulary of colonial English and the complex sentences of offi cial texts present challenges, students engage. Why did Jefferson blame King George and not Parliament for the abuses listed in the Declaration? Why did the authors of the Constitution set up the electoral college and need urging for the Bill of Rights? Other readers connect with the humanity—sometimes cloaked, sometimes fully expressed—in the words left behind. We use primary documents in all our history classes. What...
Read More5 Friendly Reads
Searching for books about friendship, it turns out, is unfriendly business. Looking past the standbys of young adult fiction (think of A Separate Peace), we find ourselves staring out at a stark landscape: the last two centuries of fiction favored exploring the loneliness of individual consciousness, not the pleasures of the BFF. Alas, the genre that yields my personal favorites, American literature, turns a cold shoulder, too: tales of rugged individualism do not accommodate bosom buddies. From Douglass to Thoreau to Hemingway, American fiction broadly asks if one can render selfhood in a...
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