Author - Don Pogreba

Don Pogreba is a current writer and retired teacher of English, Social Studies and Debate, and a loyal, if often sad, fan of the San Diego Padres and Portland Timbers. When he is not traveling, he is working on his classroom web site or dreaming about another adventure.

James by Percival Everett

Seven Essential Quotes As I said it, that wave of fear washed over me again. I might have been better off drowning in the river or freezing to death in the night. One thing was certain: I had to make sure Huck didn’t become the corpse they were looking for. More to the point, I had to make certain I didn’t become the corpse they were...

Monday Morning Mental Mix April 15, 2024

What Really Wrecked Boeing–Neoliberalism is an ideology that attempts to subject all of human activity to the invisible hand of the market, and since 1997, when Boeing acquired rival McDonnell Douglas (and more consequentially, its management), it has been neoliberalism that has guided the company on its decades-long flight from...

Monday Morning Mental Mix April 1, 2024

Women in the DRC are pushing for land rights, and curbing gender-based violence in the process–“We learned that women have a legal right to own the land – that it was Congolese law,” Mwa Namupopa says. “We talked about regional, national and international laws protecting women’s rights and how customs cannot be above laws.” www...

The Trees by Percival Everett

Seven Essential Quotes Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over a hundred years, no one notices. Where there are no mass graves, no one notices. American outrage is always for show. It has a shelf life.” Babies are smarter than us. It seems they’re always trying to kill themselves...

Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow

Seven Essential Quotes The evidence will show that they intended to abolish the Republican and Democratic parties. The evidence will show that they intended to abolish freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom from arrest without cause, and all the other civil liberties guaranteed us by the constitution. The...

An End to Inequality by Jonathan Kozol

Seven Essential Quotes Competent teachers do not need to make that choice. They know that children need to be prepared to go out and earn a living when they’re no longer children. The question that many of them ask, however, is whether students who are only six or eight or ten years old ought to be perceived as just so many economic...

Monday Morning Mental Mix March 11, 2024

The Parents in My Classroom– Recently, one of my ninth grade English students told me her parents rewarded her for making the honor roll by allowing her to text them during class. “They like to know what I’m doing in the classroom as it’s happening live,” she said. “We have a cellphone policy,” I reminded her. slate.com He died in...

Monday Morning Mental Mix February 26, 2024

Alabama Ruled Frozen Embryos Are Children — Now What?–Frozen embryos are children under Alabama law, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Friday in a decision that could have a huge impact on fertility treatments in the state. Burdick-Aysenne v. Center for Reproductive Medicine is a pair of consolidated wrongful-death cases brought by...