In this article Richard Barbieri asserts that the biggest danger to our own safety and well-being, and that of our children, comes not from adult predators, environmental hazards, or the class bully, but from traits common to us all. The enemy is us, and not least because we too often jump to such strategies as clobbering. Writers from such varied…

In the Winter 2013 issue of "Independent School," Richard Barbieri considered some of the distressing news about humanity being discovered by various physical and social scientists. Barbieri asserts in this issue that there are countervailing views and discoveries about our minds and our mores, enough for us to hope for the frequent, if…

Jim Collins's "Good to Great" has attained near-scriptural status in organizations, including nonprofits, which Collins says constitute a third of his readers. The pivot point in "Good to Great" is the Hedgehog Concept. The "Hedgehog Concept" (HC), this author claims, is dangerous for schools because it distorts the nature of education. As Collins…

Defines the content of English teaching and points out that unless English teachers have a clear picture of what they should be doing, they can hardly judge the success or failure of what they are doing. (Author/RK)

The english teacher should explore the values--both artistic and humane--present in a variety of literatures, even the worth of nonliterary modes of expression, in order to preserve the tradition seen in Shakespeare and Keats, Dickens and Homer. (Author/RK)

A grammar school in England is compared to a private school in the United States. Among other things, the author finds the English students better trained in their disciplines and the American students more open to diversity of class, race, and background, and more aware of the world around them. (KC)