Published: November 1, 2000

Like Clockwork

In 1970, my wife and I moved into our first apartment. The place had previously been rented to what was known then as a "far-out hippie." During a three-day cleaning and purging of the various '60s paraphernalia left in the apartment, I heard my wife laughing hysterically after she opened the freezer to find an alarm clock leaning precariously against ice-encrusted orange juice containers.

As children of the '60s ourselves, we concluded that the former occupant must have been trying to freeze time.

Looking back over 30 years spent in educational pursuits, I can't help thinking that this hippie may have been onto something. Too often today, we think we are totally different from the folks of days gone by. Sure, big changes have occurred over two American centuries—in population growth, family structure, neighborhoods, technology, and just about everything else. But in terms of education and children, the present isn't all that different from the past. Much has remained (and...