I love reading gardening books, especially during the winter and early spring, when I can imagine great things but don't yet actually have to get out there and do anything.

I finally did my homework assignment. For the past year and more Superintendent Jefferson has been urging administrators, teachers, staff, members of the school councils and School Committee to read Tony Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap.

It's hard to live in Harvard and not be endlessly fascinated by the experiment in living out the ideals of Transcendentalism that went on 167 years ago in the red farmhouse at what is now Fruitlands Museum.