If you’ve ever asked your pastor or Sunday school teacher, “Who wrote the Bible?” you probably got one of two responses:
“God wrote the Bible.” The Holy Spirit moved prophets like Moses and apostles like Paul to write about God’s relationship with the world (1 Ti 3:16; 2 Pe 1:20–21).
“About 40 people wrote the Bible.” The individual books were written by many authors over many years in many places to many different people groups.
In a way, both of these answers are true, but by now you’re probably looking for a little more detail about the authors of the Bible. And rightly so: when you’re studying a book or passage of the Bible, it’s pretty important to know who wrote it.
But there’s a lot of nuance that goes into answering this question. The Bible didn’t fall out of heaven, and it was a long time in the making.
So, let’s take a closer look at the people whom tradition says wrote the Bible. Before we jump into the list of names, let me throw out a few disclaimers:
This is a list of authors either identified in the Bible’s text itself or generally assumed by church/Jewish tradition. I’ve included a few candidates for anonymous works (like Moses, Ezra, and Matthew).
There are more authors of the Bible than the 35 I’ve listed here. For example, somebody wrote Judges, but we don’t know who. There really were around 40 authors of the Bible, but the Bible and tradition only call out around 35 by name.
Ancient attribution and modern attribution aren’t even really in the same ball park. For example, the book of Isaiah may have been partially composed and arranged by Isaiah’s disciples long after Isaiah’s death. But New Testament writers still refer to the words in the book as though they were Isaiah’s.
I do not know who wrote Hebrews.
First, a chart for the visual learners:
In case you’re just here for the list of names, here you go!
(I also made a poster with some fun facts about the authors of the Bible. It’s perfect for Sunday school classrooms and church offices.)
Heads up: this is a really long article. On to the nitty-gritty details …
The firing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed by the United States Senate, should worry those who care about public health and American science.
But the move should not be a surprise. It comes at the end of a tumultuous summer that included budget cuts, firings and resignations, a shooting near the agency’s headquarters, and a raft of bewildering changes to process and protocol. And while it may well signal an alarming new turn in the steady dismantling of American public health, that demolition was already well underway.
An official statement from the White House said that Dr. Monarez was “not aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.” News reports indicate that it was her clashes with the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over vaccine policy that did her in.
In his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy insisted that he was not an anti-vaxxer and that he just wanted to set the highest possible bar for which studies were used to inform health policy. He wanted “gold standard science,” he said. He also took pains to reassure his interlocutors that he was comfortable with being challenged, and with accepting data that contradicted his own views.
In the weeks that followed, some onlookers breathed a sigh of relief as Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a medical doctor and health economist, were appointed to lead the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. If their views on Covid-19 had been deemed controversial, these were still men of science and medicine. Surely that ethos would prevail, the thinking went, and would temper some of the more bombastic instincts that seemed to govern the health secretary.
But it’s clear now that neither leader was appointed for his credentials so much as his willingness to flout the basic principles of sound science and good public health. Dr. Bhattacharya has defended the termination of mRNA research; Dr. Makary has allowed officials to override his agency’s scientists on vaccine approval decisions. Neither leader has raised any meaningful objection to the broader dismantling of the agency he has been put in charge of. And when Dr. Monarez, their C.D.C. counterpart, stood her ground, she was fired.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who by all accounts cares about preserving Americans’ access to vaccines, does not seem to be keeping a wary or watchful eye on these shifting tides, or preparing to intervene with any kind of resolve. He expressed concern about Mr. Kennedy’s views on vaccination, but whatever promises he extracted from Mr. Kennedy before voting to confirm him have proved hollow. As the secretary has gutted the committee that helps set vaccine recommendations, undermined access to Covid boosters, poured resources into a self-serving attempt to link vaccines to autism, and canceled nearly $500 million in federal contracts for mRNA vaccine development (our best bet for beating the next pandemic), Senator Cassidy has remained largely, embarrassingly silent.
Despite his assurances in January, Mr. Kennedy is not simply trying to ensure that the best science is used to guide the nation’s health policies, or demanding greater transparency into health policy decision making or insisting that disenfranchised groups be heard out. He is trying to fully dismantle the nation’s vaccination apparatus, regardless of what science says or what most people want. And less than a year into his tenure as health secretary, he is succeeding brilliantly.
At least four of the C.D.C.’s top officials have resigned in protest of Dr. Monarez’s firing. More departures, voluntary or forced, are rumored to be afoot. In a resignation letter, one official noted that the data used to justify recent changes in immunization schedules was never shared with the agency, despite requests. This opacity is offensive and alarming, but again, in light of all we have seen these several months, it is hardly shocking at this point.
The upcoming fall and winter months are about to bring the usual crop of respiratory illnesses—influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and, of course, COVID. But this will be the first time since COVID vaccines were developed that many people in the U.S. will not have easy access to immunization against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, which has contributed to the deaths of more than 1.2 million Americans to date.
Public health experts had nervously tracked U.S. health agencies’ actions on vaccines in general and COVID vaccines in particular since February, when longtime antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., took the reins of the Department of Health and Human Services. Conflicting messaging and ambiguous guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration shook up the usual launch of annual vaccines.
“We typically have this very clear set of dominoes for a vaccine rollout: it’s smooth; it’s synchronized; it’s sequenced,” says Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and founder of the newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist. “But we have these missing or wobbling dominoes right now, and so the rest of the chain is backed up.”
On August 27, one of those dominoes fell when Kennedy announced in a post on X that the FDA had approved the updated COVID vaccines only for adults aged 65 or older and those with underlying health conditions that increase risk of severe infection. The decision leaves healthy children and adults without easy access; they may be limited to receiving vaccines at physicians’ offices instead of pharmacies, and health insurance might not cover the full cost for everyone.
Scientific American spoke with experts about what the public can expect in terms of COVID-19 vaccines this fall.
COVID Cases Are Rising Again
All signs suggest that COVID cases in the U.S. are ticking up. Wastewater surveillance showed moderate, high, and very high levels of SARS-CoV-2 in much of the nation, as of the week ending on August 9. Rates of positive COVID tests and emergency department visits were also up as of the week ending August 16. All three measurements are early indicators of increased viral prevalence.
Although COVID death rates are currently low, they will likely rise on a delay from those early indicators. Regardless, SARS-CoV-2 continues to take lives: More than 100 people in the U.S. have died of COVID every single week of this year, according to the CDC. Similarly, rates of new long COVID diagnoses have slowed since the early days of the pandemic, but new infections continue to trigger the lingering and disabling syndrome.
Assessing COVID’s current risks is a tricky balance, says David Higgins, a pediatrician and vaccine delivery specialist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “We are clearly in a different place than we were in 2020 and 2021, and that is a good thing,” he says. “At the same time, I think the fact that we are in such a different place can maybe lead some people to underappreciate that COVID is still causing harm for many people.”
What COVID Vaccines Are Available This Year?
Three manufacturers have produced COVID vaccines this year: Moderna and Pfizer have made mRNA vaccines, and Novavax has made a protein-based shot. The two mRNA manufacturers, at least, tailored their vaccines to the LP.8.1 variant, the version of the COVID-causing virus that was increasing in prevalence when vaccine scientists decided which version to target this year.
As of the week ending on August 9, a newer variant called XFG represented 65 percent of infections. XFG and LP.8.1 are both members of the JN.1 family, which arose at the end of 2023. Experts expect this year’s formula to shield against XFG, although the exact degree of protection is always difficult to predict at the beginning of the season.
Why Is COVID Vaccine Access Changing?
COVID vaccines go through two separate federal government procedures that determine who can access them and how they can do so. This year, neither process has gone particularly smoothly.
One system is the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes recommendations for who should receive which vaccines. This procedure governs access because insurance companies must fully cover the costs of recommended vaccines, according to the Affordable Care Act.
Earlier this year, Kennedy removed all existing members from the panel and appointed new ones—a highly unusual and criticized move—shortly before the scheduled June meeting. At that gathering, the committee was supposed to decide on this year’s COVID vaccine recommendations, but the replacement members declined to vote. It’s unclear when ACIP will meet next. The CDC’s website references a meeting that will occur in August or September but notes “dates TBD”; the next formally scheduled meeting is slated for October 22.
The other system is the FDA’s labeling process, which recently decided on access for healthy children and adults. This influences how vaccines are given. Agency personnel inspect the vaccines, ensure they are safe, and outline prescribing guidelines for health care providers. This process matters because pharmacists are generally not allowed to administer vaccines outside of what the label permits—typically, only doctors can provide vaccines “off-label.”
The shooter who opened fire at a church on the south side of Minneapolis on Wednesday morning has been identified.
Law enforcement sources told the Associated Press that Robin Westman attacked the church, adjacent to Annunciation Catholic School, as school children were celebrating Mass at the start of the academic year. Westman once attended the school.
Authorities have confirmed that two children were killed and 17 others were injured, 14 of them children, two of whom are in critical condition. A witness from inside the church said the shooter “pepper-sprayed through the stained-glass windows into the building, 50 to 100 shots.”
Westman was initially described by authorities as “a man” in his early twenties, dressed all in black and armed with a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. However, court documents later revealed that in 2019, the shooter changed their name from Robert to Robin and that they identified as a woman.
No motive is known at this time, and Westman took their own life.
President Donald Trump has offered condolences to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
A distraught Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey rejected offers of “thoughts and prayers,” saying at a press conference: “You cannot put into words the gravity, tragedy, or absolute pain of the situation.”
What you need to know…
A shooting occurred at Annunciation Church and Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning as schoolchildren were attending Mass to mark the start of the academic year.
The assailant, Robin Westman, formerly Robert, whose name was legally changed after identifying as a woman, opened fire from outside the church, using a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, to fire through the stained-glass windows after barricading some of the doors.
Two children, aged eight and ten, were killed in the attack, and 17 other individuals were injured, including 14 children, two of whom are in critical condition.
Recap: The victims
Here’s what we know about the victims of Wednesday’s tragic incident at a church, adjacent to Annunciation Catholic School.
Authorities said that two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed. Both were students at the Annunciation School.
In addition, fourteen other children were injured. They ranged in age between six and 15.
Three adult parishioners attending the mass at the time of the shooting were also injured, but survived, according to police.
Minneapolis Archbishop calls for end to gun violence, which are ‘far too commonplace’
In his statement, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda called for an end to gun violence and the “horrific acts of violence” that he said were “far too commonplace.”
“That today’s tragedy occurred only a day after the tragic shooting near Cristo Rey High School increases the sadness about the pain and anger that is present in our communities,” Hebda said.
“We need an end to gun violence. Our community is rightfully outraged at such horrific acts of violence perpetrated against the vulnerable and innocent. They are far too commonplace.
“While we need to commit to working to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies, we also need to remind ourselves that we have a God of peace and of love, and that it is his love that we will need most as we strive to embrace those who are hurting so deeply.”
Minneapolis Archbishop releases statement following church shooting
Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis released the following statement in response to Wednesday’s tragedy.
“I am so grateful for the many promises of prayers that have been coming in from the Holy Father, Pope Leo, and from so many from all around the globe, all praying for the families of Annunciation Parish and School and for all who were impacted by this morning’s senseless violence.
“I beg for the continued prayers of all of the priests and faithful of this Archdiocese, as well for the prayers of all men and women of good will, that the healing that only God can bring will be poured out on all those who were present at this morning’s Mass and particularly for the affected families who are only now beginning to comprehend the trauma they sustained.
“We lift up the souls of those who lost their lives to our loving God through the intercession of Our Lady, Queen of Peace.”
The statement continued: “My heart is broken as I think about students, teachers, clergy, and parishioners and the horror they witnessed in a Church, a place where we should feel safe.
“Members of the Archdiocesan staff are working with the parish and school teams to make sure they have the support and resources they need at this time and beyond.”
What if we could control Earth’s climate like a thermostat?This video explores a wild but serious proposal to combat global warming—geoengineering. Learn how humanity might someday regulate the planet’s temperature to prevent ecological catastrophe.
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Click the link belowfor the complete article (Sound On for video):
Long-term exposure to extreme heat events accelerates the body’s ageing process and increases vulnerabilities to health issues, finds a long-term study of 24,922 people in Taiwan.
The study, published today in Nature Climate Change, suggests that moderate increases in cumulative heatwave exposure increase a person’s biological age, to an extent comparable to regular smoking or alcohol consumption. The more extreme-heat events that people were exposed to, the more their organs aged. This is the latest study to show that extreme heat can have invisible effects on the human body and accelerate the biological clock.
Exposure to extreme heat, especially over long periods of time, strains organs and can be lethal, but “the fact that heatwaves age us is surprising”, says Paul Beggs, an environmental-health scientist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who was not involved in the research. “This study is a wake-up call that we are all vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change on our health. It reinforces calls for urgent and deep reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions,” he adds.
Accelerating ageing
Age isn’t just a result of time. Previous studies have linked a number of factors — including environmental and social stress, genetics and medical
interventions — to signs of ageing-related physiological changes. This puts people at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and dementia.
To study the long-term impacts of heatwaves on ageing, the researchers analysed data from medical examinations between 2008 and 2022. During that time, Taiwan experienced around 30 heatwaves, which the study defined as a period of elevated temperature over several days. The researchers used results from several medical tests, including assessments of liver, lung and kidney function, blood pressure and inflammation, to calculate biological age. They then compared biological age with the total cumulative temperature that participants were probably exposed to on the basis of their address in the two years before their medical visit.
The study found that the more extreme-heat events that people experienced, the faster they aged — for every extra 1.3 °C a participant was exposed to, around 0.023–0.031 years, on average, was added to their biological clock.
“While the number itself may look small, over time and across populations, this effect can have meaningful public-health implications,” says Cui Guo, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, who led the study.
Manual workers and people living in rural areas experienced the largest health impacts, probably because these groups are less likely to have access to air conditioning. But there was an unexpected upside: the impact of heatwaves on ageing decreased over the 15-year study period. The reasons behind this heat adaptation are unclear, but improved access to cooling technology could play a part, Guo says.
Still, “the message is that heat makes you age a bit faster than you normally would, and that this is something you would like to avoid”, says Alexandra Schneider, an environmental epidemiologist at Helmholtz Munich in Germany, who was not involved in the study.
Rising heat
In 2023, research in Germany found that higher air temperatures were associated with more epigenetic markers of ageing. And a study in more than 3,600 older people in the United States similarly concluded, through analysing DNA markers, that extreme heat prematurely aged participants.
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An elderly man is seen resting under a tree at Levico lake. With temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius in many parts of Italy, and wildfires burning in France, Spain, and Portugal, Europe is under under alert as the heatwave grips the continent. Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
As the Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump wants to quickly nominate a replacement for Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor who is resisting his attempt to force her out, the president told reporters he has a favorite candidate.
Asked about possible replacements for Cook during his marathon televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said: “We have some very good people for that position.”
“I think, maybe in my own mind, I have somebody that I like,” Trump added, before saying that he would also consult Scott Bessant, the treasury secretary, and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary.
Trump appears to be considering the possibility of naming his economic adviser Stephen Miran to serve out the remainder of Cook’s term, which does not expire until 2038. Earlier this month, Trump nominated Miran to serve for a much shorter term, as a replacement for another member of the Fed’s board, Adriana Kugler, a Biden nominee who was due to be replaced in five months.
Cook has said that she will sue to keep her position as a governor of the independent central bank and her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, called Trump’s move to fire her “illegal”.
In May, when the supreme court’s conservative majority ruled that the president could fire members of other independent agencies without cause, they rejected the argument that allowing him to do so would also permit him to replace members of the Federal Reserve. The court’s order on the other agencies, the justices wrote, had no bearing on “the constitutionality of for-cause removal protections” for members of the central bank.
“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” the conservative justices wrote.
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Donald Trump during the cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Pool/Aaron Schwartz – Pool/CNP/Shutterstock
As President Trump posed triumphantly for photos with police officers, government agents, and members of the National Guard in Southeast Washington last week, lawyers across town in federal court grappled with his new brand of justice.
The stream of defendants who shuffled through a federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon illustrated the new ways in which laws are being enforced in the nation’s capital after the president’s takeover of the city’s police. They were appearing before a magistrate judge on charges that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.
One man had been arrested over an open container of alcohol. Another had been charged with threatening the president after delivering a drunken outburst following his arrest on vandalism. And one defendant’s gun case so alarmed prosecutors that they intend to drop the case.
Mr. Trump has cast his crackdown on crime as a success, and suggested on Friday that it was a blueprint he would seek to apply to other cities, including Chicago. To defense lawyers and even some prosecutors, though, many of the cases that have landed in court have raised concerns that the takeover seems intended to artificially inflate its effect because government lawyers have been instructed to file the most serious federal charges, no matter how minor the incident.
One of the recipients of Mr. Trump’s show of force was Mark Bigelow, 28, a part-time delivery driver for Amazon.
After midnight on Aug. 19, Mr. Bigelow was sitting in the middle row of a van parked on a street in Northeast Washington with its doors open, according to court papers. Two other men were in the front when a full complement of law enforcement officials — from the Metropolitan Police Department, the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service — stopped and saw what appeared to be an open container of alcohol in the front seat.
As law enforcement questioned and searched the two other passengers, Mr. Bigelow left the van and started to walk away, until other agents stopped him, according to the charging document. Peering into the van, an officer spotted “a second cup containing an alcoholic beverage in the middle row seat,” at which point Mr. Bigelow was arrested on charges of possession of an open container, a misdemeanor.
As he was placed in a vehicle, the handcuffed Mr. Bigelow became belligerent, twisting his body and yelling, “Get off me! Y’all too little, bro!” at an ICE agent, according to a court filing, which described how Mr. Bigelow made “physical contact” by kicking an agent in the hand and another in the leg.
As a result, Mr. Bigelow was charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison.
The charges follow a directive by the U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, to prosecutors to charge the most serious crimes possible in each case and to do so in federal court, where sentences tend to run much longer.
A federal public defender representing Mr. Bigelow, Elizabeth Mullin, told the U.S. magistrate judge, Moxila A. Upadhyaya, that he would never have been arrested, let alone charged with a federal felony, but for the president’s crackdown. “He was caught up in this federal occupation of D.C.,” she said. “This was a case created by federal law enforcement.”
Next up was Torez Riley, 37, who was arrested at a Trader Joe’s grocery store for what the police said was possession of two handguns in his bag.
Mr. Riley’s case has been a point of contention inside the U.S. attorney’s office, where a number of prosecutors concluded that officers unlawfully searched Mr. Riley when they stopped him, violating the Fourth Amendment, according to people familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Before Mr. Trump’s crackdown, prosecutors in Ms. Pirro’s office would have been likely to dismiss a case like Mr. Riley’s after an initial review of the facts of the arrest, according to the people, who were familiar with the instructions.
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Law enforcement officials searching a car after a traffic stop in Washington last week. President Donald Trump has cast his crackdown on crime as a success, and suggested on Friday that it was a blueprint he would seek to apply to other cities, including Chicago.Credit…Eric Lee for The New York Times
Just two months after reports warily noted that new world screwworms, flesh-eating parasites that are notorious for killing livestock, pets, and other animals, hadn’t “made it back into the U.S. yet,” they have—in the form of the country’s first human infection from the current outbreak in Central America. Screwworm larvae hitched a ride inside a person who had recently been to El Salvador, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The patient, a resident of Maryland, has been treated, and the threat to other people is low. “A human coming back with [larvae] is generally not going to lead to an outbreak because those humans are going to go get treated,” says veterinary entomologist Sonja L. Swiger of Texas A&M University. “These larvae are horrible. They eat your body, literally.”
The real danger is to livestock. The new world screwworm has been spreading steadily northward from Central America, mainly by traveling in infected animals, and poses a major threat to the U.S. meat industry. Last week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., determined that the advancing parasite signaled a “significant potential for a public health emergency” that could threaten national security, according to an HHS notice.
What is a screwworm?
Screwworms are the larvae of the fly Cochliomyia hominivorax, which lays up to 300 of them at a time inside open wounds or tender parts, such as the mouth, of warm-blooded animals. Once they hatch, the larvae corkscrew their way through living flesh as they consume it, causing extreme pain or, if left untreated, even death. After three to seven days, the larvae fall to the ground and burrow into the soil to pupate, transforming into flies. A female fly mates only once and carries around the sperm to lay about 3,000 eggs in her lifespan of up to 30 days.
How are screwworm infestations treated?
The best treatment is avoidance. Because the flies are attracted to open wounds—even something tiny such as a tick bite, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—people should cover all wounds, especially when sleeping outdoors, working near cattle or traveling in infected areas. Although the adult flies aren’t known to be in the U.S. yet, they are in southern Mexico.
If you suspect you have been attacked or infected, see a physician right away. The worms may be visible in the wounds. Each individual organism must be carefully extracted, which may require surgery. Currently, there are no drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating screwworm infestations.
Kennedy did declare, however, that the FDA can fast-track approval processes for antiparasitic drugs to be used in animals with screwworm infestations. (No cases from the current outbreak have been detected in animals in the U.S.) The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine is now working with makers of animal drugs to identify promising medications. Veterinarians may also use drugs that are approved for other uses to treat screwworm infestations.
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Screw-worm fly (Cochliomyia hominivorax) larvae use their sharp mandibles to dig into and eat away the living tissue of warm-blooded animals, including humans. Philippe Psaila/Science Source
Sight words, writing his full name, addition, and subtraction — there’s a lot I know my 4-year-old son, Cooper, will learn at school this year. And because he truly loves to learn, I know he’ll nail it all. When he decided he wanted to write his numbers, we spent hours over one weekend practicing until he could scribble every digit almost as neatly as my own. When the kindergartners in his class of 3- to 5-year-olds began learning to read, he asked me for nights on end to teach him, too. I have no doubt he’ll gobble up every lesson his teacher gives him this year. But it’s not his academics I’m most excited for him to master.
You see, my little guy is exactly like me when I was his age: introverted, terrified of conflict, and at times cripplingly risk-averse. I’ve been prone to anxiety my entire life, afraid to put my face underwater when learning to swim or to ever take my training wheels off. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned to stand up for myself, and if we’re being honest, it still takes a major slight to prompt it. I see all of that same hesitation in my son. As the person who never learned to ride a bike or swim underwater, the grown woman who still feels a burning unease inside while struggling to speak up, I want to do everything in my power to change his trajectory.
Cooper has always been shy, and he isn’t one to stand up for himself or say anything to another kid who wrongs him (in the way little kids can “wrong” one another — snatching a toy, wiping a booger on his arm, you know). We’ve always told him the same thing: “Use your words and tell them no. If they don’t listen, ask your teacher for help.” For years, my husband and I have repeated the same refrain, until his first year in Montessori school.
In true toddler fashion, he wasn’t a fan of trying new foods, so I was elated when Cooper asked to eat lunch from the cafeteria on Fridays when they serve chicken nuggets or pizza. Then one day, on the drive home from school, I asked how his lunch was… and somebody had stolen his chicken nuggets. So, I messaged his teacher to let her know, and she assured me she knew the likely culprit and would sit that student with the kindergarten girls who she knew would give him hell.
Then she shared her insights: Cooper hadn’t said a word to anyone about it. It rang true for me that not only did my little shy guy not feel confident standing up for himself, but he also wasn’t sure how to ask for help, or when it was warranted. Maybe this is just being 3 or 4, but I’d seen all our friends’ children be ready and willing to speak up, bicker, and even throw hands if necessary. I imagine he feels a lot like I did in the face of conflict: dwarfed, intimidated, and just wanting it to end more than wanting it to be made right.
His teacher assured me it was fine for him to bring any conflicts to her until he got older and a little more confident, and said we should instruct him to do just that. And there I had it — something really life-changing his teacher could help me get across to him that my husband and I just haven’t been able to communicate the right way yet.
I had seen all the fruits of her labor throughout the school year: the easy way our son began counting to 200 by ones, fives, and tens, the songs about friendship he’d sing to himself as he played, and the confidence to get up on stage and perform a traditional Mexican hat dance with his classmates for the school’s heritage night (yes, it was precious). It hadn’t yet occurred to me that his teacher was also willing to coach him through some equally important life lessons, like how to work out a conflict with his classmates, speak up, or ask for help.
We’re lucky that at our son’s Montessori school, they have the same teacher from ages 3 to 5. His teacher, already well-versed in his strengths and hurdles, has two more years with him. He grew so much in his first year, and I could never have imagined how much he would learn. I know that when he walks out of his second year in her classroom, he’ll be unrecognizable in more new and wonderful ways. Maybe he’ll have neater handwriting, color entirely inside the lines, or even be starting to read. But honestly, my biggest hope is that he’ll know it’s OK to ask for help, say no, and talk to his friends about hard things. Knowing we’ll get to watch the slow bloom of his confidence, to me, is just as much a part of the magic of a new school year.
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Navigating friendships, asking for help, not knowing what you’re getting for lunch and eating it anyway… this stuff matters, too. by Katie McPherson
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Aleksandr Zubkov/Getty Images
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Navigating friendships, asking for help, not knowing what you’re getting for lunch and eating it anyway… this stuff matters, too. by Katie McPherson 
James' World 2 