This type of prohibition would create waves at any technology company in the 21st century. The near-universal trend is towards more flexibility, not less. This is especially true in industries that bill themselves as cutting-edge, not to mention industries whose very business model is to put the world at a person’s fingertips.

Yahoo!, though, is not just any technology company. It is a technology company whose CEO happens to be (a) the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company; and (b) a woman. As if to add another exclamation point after her company’s name, Marissa Mayer assumed her leadership role when she was several months pregnant with her first child.

While flexible work schedules affect men and women, parents and non-parents, it is hard to dispute that there is a unique value to working mothers who have the ability to modify their work-day when gaps in childcare arise. Perhaps that exposes my own bias, as I am a working mother. I can unequivocally state that I would not be able to both lawyer and parent without some allowances from my employers. If I have a personal connection to this issue, though, I think it only allows me to appreciate how critical it is for employers to come around to the mindset that sometimes, it does not matter where the work gets done, so long as it gets done.

For some, that Mayer is a woman, and a working mother to boot, added a layer of intrigue to her decision to suspend work-from-home opportunities. Either way, Yahoo!’s turn  from modernity demonstrated a surprising lack of sensitivity and a misdirected prioritization. Mayer should not be condemned as a turncoat to the feminist movement, but she should be questioned as a leader for failing to recognize the repercussions of her decision. What’s worse, though, is that Mayer has the authority and the pay grade to create work-arounds that insulate her from those same repercussions; not only can Mayer afford the best childcare around, she built a nursery for her son next door to her Yahoo! office. She managed to demonstrate a stunning level of hypocrisy and tone deafness in just a matter of months.

It appears Mayer is now attempting some form of damage control. Yahoo! has now announced yet another employee policy, this time padding paid-leave benefits for new parents. Mothers who give birth can now enjoy 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, and mothers who have children via adoption, foster placement, or surrogacy can enjoy eight weeks of paid leave. New fathers will now receive eight weeks of paid leave in all circumstances. New parents will also receive a $500 check from Yahoo! to spend on things like house-cleaning, babysitters, or Yahoo! gear. The change represents a significant benefits expansion, especially for mothers, who used to receive only eight weeks of paid leave.

All of this is well and good. The old Yahoo! leave policy was too stingy, even when compared to the already-stingy standards predominant in the U.S. Again speaking from experience, it is very hard to remain committed to an employer who makes very little effort to recognize and “accommodate” the life you lead outside of your office park. By making the parenting-back-to-work transition a bit smoother, Yahoo! will presumably succeed in retaining talent and experience that would otherwise throw up its hands and opt to stay home or work somewhere else. And, of course, the move was a savvy public relations play in light of the damage done in February.

It important that companies like Yahoo! institute these kinds of benefits for reasons beyond Yahoo!, whose workers are already far more fortunate than many employees inside and outside of this country. The big, publicly-traded, globally-recognizable institutions need to set standards in these areas so that smaller companies are inspired to follow suit. Some parents have no flexibility in their schedules and virtually no paid-leave benefits, whatever the circumstance. That is obviously unfair and unacceptable. The U.S. has not updated the Family and Medical Leave Act in decades, so if movement is going to happen here, it looks like it will have to happen through the normalization of new employment practices at the corporate level.

It is still too early to celebrate, though. Yahoo!’s work-life policies include that eyesore of a ban on telecommuting, and otherwise lag far behind the gold mines at Google and Facebook. Those Silicon Valley neighbors have more generous paid-leave policies and numerous other perks. I will again reference my former law firm, which for years has given 16 weeks of paid leave for all new mothers – even non-partners. So Yahoo! has just caught up with the otherwise stereotypical New York City law firm I billed thousands of hours at (sometimes from my desk at home while my daughter napped).

Mayer seems to have simply made a strategic move to help restore her company’s public image. She does not deserve recognition, on this score, for much more than that. Yahoo! will continue to represent a step backwards in the evolution of corporate America because of its dim view of flexible work arrangements. It is unfortunate that a woman is responsible for the re-entrenchment of an old-fashioned approach, but it’s largely irrelevant. The policy is bad, period, and it still needs to be fixed. Period.

Featured image via CNN Money.

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The prom is not an excuse for debauchery for all high school students. On behalf of all the non-drinkers out there, let me say it loud and proud: I didn’t have my first drink until I was a sophomore in college. Nevertheless, my prom preparations were always impacted by the drinky-drink chatter of my friends and peers. Even then, my chem-free approach was something of a quiet minority.

So the subject is lurking at most every prom. Who will be drinking, how will they get their drinks, and where will they do the drinking? Is their hope to be drunk on arrival, are they planning on nipping at a flask in the bathroom of the actual dance, or are they waiting until after they do the Dougie for three hours on a parquet floor? It’s a part of prom-dom that’s as cliche as the corsages.

Well, one high school isn’t standing for it anymore. After some kids showed up drunk to a homecoming dance in December, Indiana’s Chesterton High School announced a plan for prom chaperones to administer breathalyzer test on prom-goers. Those students who tested positive after that first test would be re-tested by a police officer. Any student that failed the second test would be turned over to the police, and face suspension and restrictions on their extra-curricular activities. The School Board recently approved the plan.

The initiative is sparking strong reactions. Because the tests are intended for all students, some argue that it is overbroad. Others have raised concerns about the effectiveness of the tests themselves, and the possibilities for false positives. Still others might look at the stand taken by students at a New Jersey high school – those students refused to take the test on the grounds it violated their constitutional rights.

My take? I think the program is a good idea, but should be more narrowly tailored. Here’s why:

1. The school would probably win a legal challenge to the testing policy. The Supreme Court has upheld mandatory drug testing of public school student-athletes, and I would think the school could argue that the breathalyzer tests further the school’s interest in preventing alcohol abuse by the minors who chose to attend a school-sponsored social event. The breathalyzer test does not involve an element of indignity – such as a strip search - and all parents know that their children are subject to testing. These factors favor the school, when viewed in the light of legal precedent.
2. High schoolers are not supposed to be drinking. The legal drinking age is 21. High schoolers are (traditionally, and by a huge majority) under 21. End of conversation.
3. In addition to being illegal, drinking before or at the prom is dangerous. There are issues surrounding driving while impaired, becoming sick at the dance, making other bad decisions, and setting a negative example for fellow students.
4. The school cannot be seen as condoning the activity/related behavior. Where the school is both the host and over-riding chaperone of the event, it cannot be seen as turning a blind eye to students who are drunk while in the school’s “care.” It’s irresponsible, and it’s weak. The school should take proactive steps towards combating alcohol abuse in connection with the prom, rather then simply reacting when an incident - or worse, an alcohol-related tragedy – occurs.
5. The threat of a breathalyzer test will likely be an effective deterrent to drinking before or at the prom. Most students should be smart enough, and conscientious enough, to modify their risk tolerance in light of the fact that (a) chaperones will be vigilantly monitoring the crowd; and (b) the test is an objective method of proving a student has been drinking. The pre-identified repercussions of police involvement and school exclusions also make the consequences for misbehavior clear.
6. False positives mean the student might have to leave the dance. That risk is a fair trade-off for the reward of correctly identifying students who are, in fact, drunk. The student who falsely tests positive can work, together with his or her parents, to undo the repercussions of the incorrect results after the dance. Alternatively, students with conditions – such as diabetes or acid reflux - that are commonly known to result in false positives can raise those concerns with the school before the dance.
7. BUT, all students should not actually have to be tested. It should be obvious, or at least reasonably clear, which students at the prom have been drinking. Where police are already going to be involved in monitoring the dance, chaperones will not be left to their own devices in determining whether a student merits testing. Acting in concert, the adults – civilian and police – should remove students from the crowd for testing as necessary. That makes the process more efficient, adds a layer of justification to whatever tests are actually carried out, and still encourages responsible behavior by all. It also should reduce the chances for false positives.

What do you think? Are these breathalyzer tests cool or uncool?

The post Cool or Uncool?: Breathalyzers At The Prom appeared first on HelloGiggles.

Yes, Afghanistan. The country that our country invaded a decade ago. We went in to oust an oppressive regime that encouraged radicalism and terrorism outside of its borders, and we stayed to support a democratic regime that recognized fundamental freedoms and human rights inside of those same borders. At least, that was and has been the story, although there are lengthy footnotes that question both the introductory chapter and – especially – the ones that follow.

Almost immediately after the US-led campaign in Afghanistan began, former First Lady Laura Bush became a champion for Afghan women. With the Taliban on the run, Mrs. Bush remarked that Afghan women were “rejoicing”. She explicitly linked the war on terror to the “fight for the rights and dignity of women”. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, assumed this particular bully pulpit on behalf of the Obama administration.

During the period the two women shared the proverbial baton, they could and did point to modest gains in the lives of those women. Pre-invasion, the Taliban notoriously and severely restricted women’s access to education, health care and work, and deprived them of any power or legitmacy even in their own homes. Post-invasion, there were at least some examples of progress: women moved into positions in government and business, some girls started going to school, and legal protections were extended to women  – at least in some form, and at least as written.

But all of that was when the US was a visible and sometimes large presence in the country. In 2014, the US is to be no presence in the country. And as the US prepares to withdraw, Afghanistan prepares to undo many of the even modest gains it “allowed” for women. One Kabul-based nonprofit predicted that “[m]ost of women’s important achievements over the last decade are likely to be reversed.”

Recent news from Afghanistan challenges whether we even helped Afghan women as much as we’d hoped, and indicates that the reversal of Afghan women’s meager fortunes is well underway.

It is suspected that as many as 74 girls at a school in northern Afghanistan were deliberately poisoned by gas this past Thursday. You can imagine the chaos that broke out as the students began falling unconscious. You cannot imagine why anyone would seek to poison a child for the mere fact of being a girl trying to learn something. Unless, of course, you are one of the “ultra-conservative elements of Afghan society that believe[s] girls should not be educated.”

Even during the years of “progress” for Afghan women, more than half of Afghan girls still did not attend school. Those that did try to attend might have been shut out: hundreds of schools were closed due to security concerns – closures that affected 300,000 students in eleven provinces.

The security concerns for girls trying to go to school has taken on a specific tenor: poisonings like the one at the Bibi Hawa Girls High School referenced above. Just days before that poisoning, in fact, there was a similar one, in the very same province, that sent a dozen girls to the hospital. There were four similar instances in May and June of 2012 alone. In those cases, 700 girls were poisoned through contaminated drinking water and poisonous gases.

Questions abound.

How can anyone believe their religion compels them to engage in these human-on-human atrocities?

What can be done for the girls – and women – of Afghanistan that could not be accomplished by decades of war, international condemnation, and dogged activism?

Who looks at a child and sees an enemy?

And this one:

Why is it so threatening, so incendiary, so provocative to be a girl, even a girl who knows how to read?

Featured image via feministezine.com

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Apparently, her therapist does not share my passion/enthusiasm.

Julia was recently on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. She confessed that she had seen a therapist, and the dude FELL ASLEEP WHILE SHE WAS TALKING! That seems like some sort of sin, scientific impossibility or Seinfeld episode.

She was a good sport about it – at least describing it in retrospect. It goes without saying, though, that therapy finds people at their most vulnerable. There is nothing positive about going in with issues and leaving with a new one: you’re boring, or not worth the attention of the person you’re paying to give you attention. It should also go without saying, then, that if your therapist falls asleep during one of your sessions, it’s time to find a new therapist.

Here are other indicators that your professional is behaving unprofessionally:

1. Your lawyer’s office has bars on the windows, metal tables that are affixed to the floor and a view of “the yard.”
2. Your doctor asks you to call him Doogie Howser or George Clooney.
3. Your plumber asks where you keep the Drano.
4. Your investment advisor tells you she didn’t buy Apple because she doesn’t trust men named Steve.
5. Your agent books you an audition for Real Housewives of Newark. You live in a dorm. And you are a violinist.
6. Your professor asks you whether it’s “i before e, especially after c,” or if that’s just some lie the government wants us to believe.
7. Your coach spends the entire season drilling you on Justin Bieber lyrics.
8. Your director consumes all of the rehearsal time sobbing “what’s my motivation? WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION?!?”
9. Your hair stylist won’t let you look in a mirror during your hair cut, and suggests that you refrain from looking in one for 6-8 months post-cut.
10. Your manicurist takes alarmingly deep sniffs of the polish before every stroke on your nail.

If any of these things is true in your relationship with any such professional, might I recommend a Google search or an Angie’s list membership.

Featured Image Via Shutterstock

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“My husband will be graduating law school in May (YAY!) and taking the Bar in July. We’ve been warned it will be hellish while he is preparing to take it. What advice do you have for a partner who wants to be as supportive and helpful as possible while he’s going through such a stressful process? Thanks for your help!” ~ Melissa

Yay, indeed. Congratulations to your husband, and to you, Melissa. You should win some sort of award, too, for the sweetness of your question. I’m not going to sugarcoat things: the Bar is hellish. I think it’s the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, and I’m including birthing my two children in that estimation. The factors that make it so tough include: (a) the dozens of subjects you are tested on; (b) the weeks and weeks you spend studying; (c) the fact that everyone knows you are studying for the Bar, so failing risks both a personal disappointment and a public embarrassment; and (d) your future employment probably depends on passing. I think the biggest thing a significant other can do is recognize, and accept, the very real and unique stress that the Bar triggers, and the time commitment it demands. Try not to take your husband’s moodiness, nervousness, or aloofness personally; he’s probably panicking because he can’t remember the acronym for the 9 different ways to perfect title to real property. Give him space, reassure him everything will be fine, and don’t expect him to remember your name. Then, when the test is over, take him to do something that has absolutely nothing to do with books, words, his brain, or multiple choices.

“If you fail the bar exam, can you retake it?” ~ Ellie

Ellie, are you related to Melissa or Melissa’s husband? Yes, if you fail the Bar exam, you can retake it. You won’t want too, though. A week or two into studying for the Bar the first time around, you realize it’s an experience you will never, ever want to repeat. That’s another reason why it’s such a terrifying experience: it’s impossible to convince yourself that the stakes are anything but high.

“If you don’t have much money but feel like you should seek legal counsel for something, what are some good resources? What’s the first step in the process?” ~ Jackie

As bizarre as it may sound, Jackie, my first suggestion would be to Google the gist of your question. Much like hopping on webmd.com when you want to get some general sense of a medical issue you’re dealing with, the Internet can give you big-picture direction on legal questions as well. Search results can generate substantive responses (like the legal terminology for what you’re wondering about, the laws that might apply, and references to cases or academic articles on the issue) AND they can turn up referrals to organizations that deal with “your” issue. And that’s the next step: there are plenty of non-profits that provide low-cost legal counseling and even representation. Find one in your area, visit their website, and/or schedule a visit. Also, you should always keep in mind that your first visit with any lawyer – even one in private practice – is “free.” You should not be charged for a lawyer’s time, or the advice dispensed in that time, until you formally retain the lawyer to represent you. So, you can meet with a lawyer to explain your situation and get her feedback on whether you have a claim, how she would handle your case, and what her fees are. Be up front about all your concerns, including payment terms, from the get-go.

“How many hours a week do you typically work?” ~ Danni

Danni, the answer to this question is a lawyer’s favorite answer: it depends. What does it depend on? Where, geographically, you are working, who you are working for, what kind of law you practice, and when you tend to fall asleep sitting up. Using myself as an example, when I worked in New York City and then Washington, D.C. as a litigator for a large law firm, I worked a lot. I would say I averaged 12-hour days during the week, and probably worked at least 5-10 hours most weekends. It was a crushing pace. Now, I work for a software company in Maine, and negotiated a reduced schedule for myself. I’m lucky enough to work a pretty standard 40-hour workweek. There are legal jobs with hours requirements everywhere in between my two extremes.

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We’ve all heard enough.

For years, Casey Anthony seemed to be all we heard about. You could not turn on your television without hearing an update on the search for Caylee, her “missing” young daughter. You could not buy a magazine or a newspaper without seeing more and more accounts of conflicting statements and bizarre behavior from Casey:  Casey left Caylee with a nanny, who kidnapped her. Except there was no nanny. Casey worked at Universal Studios at the time of Caylee’s disappearance. Except she hadn’t worked there in years. Casey was a grieving, distraught mother. Except she was dancing on bar tables and getting tattoos about the beauty of life during her daughter’s disappearance.

Finally, the inevitable happened. Casey was arrested, and Caylee’s decomposed body was found in the woods near Casey’s home. The ensuing trial became the trial of the millennium, complete with a rogue bond bailsman, a Cheshire-cat grinning defense lawyer, Jose Baez and a sordid tale of incestuous molestation and pathological lying. The jury found Casey not guilty on all counts save four – for providing false information to authorities – and Casey was a free woman. Well, free in the sense that she no longer lived behind bars.

It would be nice to think that Casey continues to be incarcerated by her conscience. Given the Casey Anthony we came to “know” since 2008, it is doubtful she has been found guilty even there.

She has, however, been plagued by debt. Her legal defense was expensive. She has been sued by the man who found Caylee’s body and the woman Casey labeled as Caylee’s nanny, both of whom Casey or her team tried to paint as the potential killer. Volunteers who searched for Caylee’s body are also suing Casey for the expenses associated with their searches.

And so, in January of this year, Casey filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. She claims that she owes nearly $800,000, more than half that amount to Baez alone. She claims the only assets she has are some cash and insignificant jewelry, totaling just north of $1,000. Claiming that she has had no income in years, she explains that she has survived on the kindness of friends who let her live with them for free.

As a legal matter, it is important to Casey that she convinces the judge she has no real income; otherwise, she will not be eligible for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. The magical thing about Chapter 7 is that it wipes the filer’s slate clean. If Casey succeeds in her petition, the court will erase all of her debts, and she can re-start her financial life.

Off the hook again, you might say.

There’s a not-so-fast aspect to the bankruptcy proceedings. A “trustee” is assigned to make sure that there are no assets that could be sold to pay down some debts. In Casey’s case, the trustee has proposed a forced sale of Casey’s life story. The trustee claims he has already received three offers for the rights to her story, in the $10,000-$12,000 range.

Casey, through her bankruptcy lawyers, has objected to the trustee’s proposal. She claims that it would invade on her “private thoughts,” and that it would deny her the “fresh start” that Chapter 7 bankruptcy is designed to provide. There are indications that the bankruptcy judge is inclined to agree with her.

Coming from Casey Anthony, it is almost certain that there is an ulterior motive underlying her objection to the life story proposal. There is an undeniable shrewdness to Casey, and in entirely selfish and self-serving terms, it has served her well. In this context, by arguing her way out of a court-mandated sale of her story, she keeps her hands on the one thing of value she has: herself.

If sold at bankruptcy, Casey’s story would bring no profits to Casey. The purchase price would pay down a seemingly small percentage of her debts, and the purchaser(s) would be able to do whatever they wanted with her life’s material.

If, however, Casey is able to exit bankruptcy with her rights to her story in tact, she can then go ahead and…yes, sell it. Barring some other prohibition or complication, she can do the tell-all book or the big interview or the spec script. And every time the cash register dings, it will signal the sound of money going into Casey’s hungry pockets.

Whether you find this disgusting or frustrating or a sterling example of the American legal process, it is hard to argue that Casey Anthony represents anything of value to the general public. She is at best a cautionary tale, and that tale has already been told. Her first-person narration would represent nothing more than an attempt to humanize or legitimize or destigmatize a person who has proven herself to be careless – in every sense of the word. Why, therefore, should any of us care about her?

The only stories Casey Anthony should be thinking about are the bedtime stories she is not reading to her daughter. Any other story she tells – voluntarily or involuntarily – doesn’t deserve a listener.

Featured image via Biography.com

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That is not a cry for help. No, it’s an invitation for you to join me. Books are among the most egalitarian of pursuits: any literate person can enjoy them, even for free, assuming they have access to a library and some form of photo identification. There are books on every subject you can imagine and hundreds you cannot. Books can help you, teach you, and simply entertain you.

Not sure you’re fully exploiting the gift that is reading? Then, ahem, read on. These are the signs you should be reading more:

You think Borders was a chain of Mexican restaurants, and that Amazon.com is a travel adventure website.I’m here to tell you that each of those institutions was or remains in the book-selling business. When Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011, I went into a period of mourning that I only exited when I purchased my “Prime” account with Amazon.com. Having a “Prime” account with Amazon is like having a black AmEx, only for poorer, less exclusive people. It grants you faster shipping times, and doesn’t charge you for them. So now when I need to clutter my home with more books, I can do it in under 24 hours. If you’re not taking similar advantage of this high-flying purchasing power, it’s because you’re not fully embracing your inner librarian.

You think glasses are a fashion accessory. Your eyesight has not been deteriorated by staring at small font on a sunny day at the beach, or by squinting into the dim circle of visibility provided by a flashlight on a thin page. Accordingly, you have never visited an ophthalmologist or an optometrist. You have only visited the whimsy section at Anthropologie or the hipster aisle at Urban Outfitters to outfit the area north of your nose and south of your wrinkle-free forehead.

You think Young Adult is a movie starring Charlize Theron or the name for the 18-to-25-year-old box on surveys. Guess what? It’s also a genre of literature, which I happen to appreciate more as I get older. It’s responsible for the cultural phenomenon that was the Twilight movies. The genre also lays claim to one of the best books I’ve read in years: The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. If you haven’t read that yet, stop everything and go do it. You can consider that less a recommendation, and more a public service announcement.

You think you turn a page by clicking or tapping something. If you don’t appreciate the heft of an actual book, if you don’t get satisfaction from measuring how much you’ve read by the thickness of the pages in your left hand, if you don’t struggle with the decision of whether to remove the fancy jacket of a hard-cover, if you don’t lament at the subtle but undeniable destruction caused by dog-earing pages, then you are missing out. Reading is more than just an act, it’s an experience.

You have never watched a movie and thought, “That was good, but the book was way better.” Here’s the deal: the book is always better than the movie. That’s because when you are reading a book, you are the director, the producer, the casting executive, the costume designer, and the cinematographer. You get to create every scene and shape every dialogue based on the nuances of tone, emotion, character and setting as you absorb and intuit them. You are given unfettered permission to be the dictator of your own imagination. It will always be a letdown when you have to release your power over a storyline and entrust it to another. If you have not experienced this type of creative disappointment, you’re being too nice to yourself.

You have read this entire post with your finger underlining every word as you come to it on the screen.

Go take a look. It’ll be in a book.

Have a good one to recommend? Please do so in the comments!

Featured image via Shutterstock

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Logan LaPlante admits that he doesn’t understand how his room gets messy, and often can’t remember if he has showered on any given day. These matters of grooming and hygienics aside, Logan seems to have most everything else figured out. Indeed, Logan is so far ahead of the game that he was invited, earlier this year, to speak on education policy at a TEDx conference.

TED is a nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It was initially created to bring together heavyweights and bigwigs from the worlds of Technology, Entertainment [and] Design. Now it is famous for being a platform for famous people to give “talks” on a huge variety of subjects that are made available, for free, to the world. Past speakers include Ken Jennings, the guy who holds the record for most consecutive wins on Jeopardy, and Bono, lead singer of this band called U2.

Logan can now count himself among these men. At the tender age of 13, he spoke for over ten minutes on a large stage with a power point presentation and a microphone. He looked as at ease as one imagines he looks at the dinner table. He opened his mouth, and out came reflections on “traditional” education, delivered with the vocabulary, self-deprecation, and pacing of an experienced adult public speaker.

His message was this: the most important thing we can learn is how to be happy and healthy. Those are not aptitudes that are taught or tested in conventional classrooms. We should therefore reconsider the limitations of standard schooling, and try to bring more creativity, exercise, nature, and spirituality – to name just a few examples – into our educations.

For Logan’s parents, that meant withdrawing him from his mainstream school four years ago. Since then, Logan has been participating in community workshops, internships, and mentoring relationships. He has learned how to read and write, yes, and about science and history, sure, but he’s done so by focusing on subjects that he is passionate about, like skiing. He’s learned math by apprenticing himself to a local ski and design shop. He knows how to survive in the woods with nothing but a knife. I know I didn’t learn that in public school.

He calls all of this “hackschooling,” making him – and his parents – hackers. Rather than breaking into a computer program to steal, manipulate, or infect, though, he is turning education on its head to expand, explore, and evolve…himself

The more Logan talked, the further my jaw inched towards the floor. It is obvious that he is an intelligent, self-confident, and fulfilled young man. He also illuminates clear gaps in traditional education with a sweet sincerity and precocious directness that cannot be ignored. Indeed, it’s hard to reach the end of Logan’s speech without thinking “well, yeah, it’s great I learned about Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln, but it might have been helpful for me to learn about myself, too.”

I know that my formal education included a lot of angst. Some of that drama was attributable to the fact that I was struggling with subjects and assignments that held absolutely no appeal to me. Every time I sat down near a Bunsen burner, or someone put a beaker in my hand, or I was asked to do with a pencil what I knew a calculator could handle so much more gracefully, I verged on tears and irreversible eye-rolling. Some of the drama, though, was also due to the fact that I was struggling with myself. The noise of adolescence was reducing my own voice to a whisper, and I never really knew if I was doing something because I wanted to or because I thought other people probably wanted me to.

Now I am a parent, with two children who will start their own schooling much too soon. I’ve repeatedly stated that I do not care what grades they get, sports they play, or skills they hone. I am unwavering, however, in my expectation that they each become good people – the very lesson I know they will not be lectured on or offered to pursue as an elective.

Not all of us have the resources to be “hackschooled.” That does not mean that Logan’s message should be dismissed, or even diminished. Instead, we need to listen to the memories that Logan’s words awaken.

I need to remember that my homework never reinforced my sense of self. I need to remember that my values were honed at summer camp and in the pages of books I chose to read. I need to remember that some of my best teachers were not people, but experiences.

I need to remember all of that so I can look for, and foster, those same opportunities for my children.

While their curriculum might never approach Logan’s, I can rest assured that, if learning never stops, then the hacking never has to, either.

Featured image via UnofficialAlpine.com

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