Author: Nola Jones

On a Tuesday morning, you can find a student using Schoology somewhere between the announcements in the hallway and the rush for Chromebook chargers in practically every Frederick County school. It’s now as commonplace as opening a textbook, with the exception that the textbook now keeps track of whether you’ve read it, responded to it, and received a score high enough to advance. For what seems like a straightforward reason, Frederick County Public Schools adopted Schoology as their official learning management system: a single platform for managing courses, grades, communication, and teamwork for grades PK through 12. In reality, it’s…

The way Finn Wolfhard’s educational background fits so well into the larger framework of his life is subtly striking. After landing a role as big as Stranger Things, the majority of young actors quickly abandon traditional education, engulfed by press tours, sets, and the peculiar machinery of celebrity. Although Wolfhard didn’t completely avoid that attraction, his educational journey—rooted in Vancouver, molded by Catholic principles, and interrupted by the demands of early fame—tells a tale that merits further examination. Wolfhard was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on December 23, 2002, and was raised in a home that obviously valued education. His…

A 1964 black-and-white photo conveys more information than the majority of political biographies. Standing in his uniform from the New York Military Academy, Donald Trump has twelve medals on his chest that he borrowed for the photo. Most of them, he hadn’t earned. Nevertheless, he borrowed them, put them on, and looked directly into the camera. Even though it’s tiny and often ignored, that picture manages to convey a person’s entire personality. The Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills, Queens, was the unremarkable starting point of Donald Trump’s education. Detentions there reportedly became known as “Donny Trumps,” a sign of either…

Isabela Merced talks about a moment that sticks in your memory. Seven years old, she was dropped off in her mother’s hometown of Huancayo, Peru, to relearn a language that she had been gradually losing due to assimilation back in Cleveland, Ohio. It infuriated her. She described it as a punishment to trade a summer in the Northern Hemisphere for a winter in the Southern Hemisphere. However, something opened up somewhere in that discomfort. She returned with a sense of identity that most children her age couldn’t have expressed if they tried. She was sharper and more grounded. Perhaps the…

Some artists are shaped by a certain kind of restlessness that doesn’t wait for a diploma or a permission slip. That trait is evident in Margaret Qualley, and it can be traced almost directly to her educational background. Not in the conventional, linear sense of the word, but rather in the haphazard, instinct-driven, somewhat chaotic manner that usually results in interesting individuals. At fourteen, she moved out of the house. That in and of itself says something. Qualley left his home of Biltmore Forest, a peaceful suburb of Asheville, North Carolina, to attend the University of North Carolina School of…

The document, which was twenty-eight pages long and written in the meticulous, almost bureaucratic style of an international organization that has been conducting this kind of work since 1948, arrived on a Thursday. OMEP, the French acronym for the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, is not the kind of organization that typically unnerves people. It hosts conferences in cities like Nairobi and Athens. Directors of kindergartens, researchers studying child development, and occasionally retired ministry officials make up its membership. Nevertheless, two product managers at a significant San Francisco AI lab were discreetly instructed to halt their roadmap for an…

When most diners hear the word espuma for the first time, a waiter will typically pause in a theatrical manner, implying that something delicate is about to fall onto the table. A pale green cloud perched atop a spoon. Over a scallop, a hint of orange. Something that appears nearly too tender to consume. Then comes the explanation, which is sometimes mumbled and frequently only partially translated because espuma is one of those words that is difficult to translate into English. Espuma is the Portuguese and Spanish word for foam in its most basic form. Not the industrial variety. Not…

When the biryani is served at an Indian dining table, a certain silence descends. rising steam. The air was heavy with the subtle aroma of fried onions and saffron. A tiny bowl of cucumber yogurt is then placed next to the rice, almost without any formalities. It appears to be an afterthought. It isn’t. For generations, raita, as most people know it, has quietly held Indian meals together. The recipe is hardly a recipe at all. Thick yogurt, grated or chopped cucumber, salt, a dash of cumin, and occasionally some torn mint leaves or cilantro. That’s the entire situation. However,…

The first thing that people forget about Jalen Brunson is how unremarkable he appeared when he first arrived at Villanova in the fall of 2015. On a good day, I was six feet two. No one was intimidated by this frame. Although he was the undisputed best point guard in his recruiting class when he arrived on campus, there weren’t many elite floor generals in the class, and scouts had been secretly questioning whether his skill level would improve. It was understandable why some people had doubts after seeing him during those early Wildcat practices. He avoided dunking on people.…

When the word “lid” appears in a message on their phone, most people pause for a moment. It feels strangely out of place to find it tucked between emojis or sitting alone at the end of a sentence because it is such a small word and so domestic in its everyday meaning. You gaze at it. You question whether your friend is referring to a hat, a jar, or something completely different. The word seems to have lost control, and no one can be certain where it is now. The dull part is the dictionary definition. Merriam-Webster continues to lead…