James D. Hogan

The Beautiful Story of a D-Rated School

On May 7, 2017

EDUCATION

Letter grades can’t possibly tell the whole story of a school. An inside look at the passionate work of a school our state says is a letter away from failing.

(Author’s note: this story was originally published in September 2015.)

A few weeks ago, my wife began her fifteenth year teaching elementary school music. She’s been in the same classroom and the same school for her entire career, and she’s seen thousands of kids come through her hallway.

She enjoys her job; she teaches every kid in the building, so she’s kind of like a local celebrity. We rarely can make it through the grocery store (or anywhere around town) without someone running up to her, hugging her leg, and running off with a smile. It’s a happy thing to see.

This week, though, her school received a North Carolina school performance grade of D.

Before and After

By James D. Hogan

On April 16, 2017

In writing

FAITH

Facebook is like a party, only everyone’s invited.

Whenever Lent rolls around, I look for something I’ll miss and choose to give it up for awhile. There were always a handful of things I considered third rail Lent items, chiefly coffee (I drink two or three cups a day) and internet things, like Facebook.

My hesitation about giving up Facebook was rooted in hobbies like this one–writing for a blog. Publishing online, after all, requires one to have a well-sourced distribution network. Facebook is king. How could I give up the biggest readership group for forty days? (Irony duly noted.)

But this year, particularly after a political season that hounded my news feed like an abused dog, I felt more than ready to try the experiment. I changed my profile over to an ashen cross and turned the Big Blue F off.

I learned a few things along the way.

A Third of the Way

By James D. Hogan

On March 24, 2017

In diary

DIARY

Jules

My triennial birthday letter to my daughter.

My dear Julia,
Somewhere along the way I determined that I ought to write letters to you guys every few years on your birthdays, and just this week I was trying to figure out if this was your year.

It couldn’t be, I thought, because surely it wasn’t that long ago that I’d sat down to write a note to you. But I was wrong.

It’s very much possible that this is the last letter that I write to you that’s an open letter–one that I publish on my silly little online journal–in part because, only recently, you’ve seemed to understand that there’s a world wide web that sees so many of the things we capture with our little metal and glass phones and upload through the thin air. It caught me by surprise when I snapped a picture of you, a fun one, I thought, and you looked at it and told me not to put it on Facebook.

I put it on Instagram instead.