by johnnoltner
I was a Marine. For six weeks. As a journalism student, I believed I should try to understand as many different perspectives as possible and I knew nothing about the military. So when I returned to my dorm room one afternoon and found a flier in my mailbox that said, “You could be a Marine,” I called the recruiter. At the time, their officer candidate program allowed you to dis-enroll at any time without a commitment. I read that fine […]
Categories: Uncategorized
by johnnoltner
“I took away their erasers,” she said. They were fixated on perfection and they never made any progress. The high school art teacher was sharing how her drawing students were afraid of making mistakes. If they made a bad mark on the paper, they would erase it and start again. Another mistake, and more erasing. The thing is, if you erase too many times, you actually damage the paper. You destroy the surface and it no longer takes a mark in […]
by johnnoltner
I’m not a pacifist. I believe it’s vital to resist evil in the world, and sometimes force is required. But I also believe we use it poorly. Syria’s Assad has little legitimacy as a leader and the alleged use of chemical weapons in his country is indefensible. I would have preferred Obama to have acted early in the conflict to find a resolution before so much human suffering occurred. But I don’t believe our country’s missile strike early Friday will […]
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by johnnoltner
At the School Redesign in Action conference for the New England Secondary School Consortium, we asked participants, “How do you ensure equity and excellence for all learners?” Some of the responses can be found below…a full collection can be found in our Facebook gallery.
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by johnnoltner
This morning our friends Jen and Greg started hiking 8.8 miles uphill toward Amicalola Falls in Georgia. When they reach the falls, they’ll keep going. Another 2,181 miles. If things go according to plan, sometime in the middle of October they will stand on the summit of Mt. Katahdin in the middle of Maine’s Baxter State Park. If things go according to plan, they will hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. Yesterday, Karen and I hiked a section […]
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by johnnoltner
Jarell Wilson describes himself as black, gay, and Christian. He lives in the South and, at times, he struggles to balance these three identities in a society that he says doesn’t embrace two thirds of them. He believes that people often try to put identities into boxes, and that results in stereotypes that lead to stress and conflict. Yet, at the end of the day, Jarell finds beauty and peace all around him. He finds joy in each of these identities. “Peace comes from […]
Categories: Podcast • Tags: beauty, faith, forgiveness, gender, identity, joy, race, religion, round rock, sacred, texas
by johnnoltner
In the summer of 2008 our family backpacked on an island off the coast of Maine. A small boat dropped us off, motored away, and retrieved us three days later. Our kids, Brenna and Jordan, were 10 and 13. We spent our days picking wild blueberries and wandering the rocky shoreline, imagining we were castaways, with really nice gear from REI. We watched the waves roll in and searched tide pools for signs of life. We weren’t quite alone. There […]
Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: backpack, crab, family, growth, island, maine, marine biology, molting, peace, shed, wilderness
by johnnoltner
Chris Brixey works as a paramedic, a ski patrol, and a wilderness EMT. He says that’s how he puts bread on the table and beer in the fridge. Some of Chris’s earliest and fondest memories are of pulling into a campground with his family and spending time outdoors. He says that a lifetime of satisfying experiences in the mountains have driven him to want more. “Every action has a root cause in either fear or love.” The mountains have always […]
Categories: Podcast • Tags: eavaluate, leavenworth, nature, outdoors, problem, rest, simplicity, solution, washington
by johnnoltner
Claudia Horwitz is founding director of Stone Circles at the Stone House, a 70-acre retreat center outside Mebane, North Carolina, dedicated to the support of people and organizations working toward social change. Claudia’s efforts grew out of an awareness that social justice work could exact a tremendous toll on people, and her desire to make the work of building social movements more sustainable. “There are ancestral, cultural, and political legacies that survive and thrive because they’re not interrupted with some kind […]
Categories: Podcast • Tags: balance, mebane, North Carolina, peace, process, social change, social justice, story
