If you are a parent, and ever had a challenge related to your child(ren)’s school (what is the opposite of an oxymoron? this must be an example of it, but where is George Carlin when you need him?), you will likely want to read Clifford Levy’s moving description (alert: if you are not a subscriber to The New York Times this link will count as one of your free sample views) of enrolling his three kids from Brooklyn in a Moscow school a few years back.

If you are anyone who ever had your own momentary thoughts about being too cool for school (again the opposite of an oxymoron: who hasn’t?  is it called a tautology?  or just plain old redundant?), you will definitely want to read at least one snippet about the founder of the school in Moscow that Levy is describing:

…Bogin added courses like antimanipulation, which was intended to give children tools to decipher commercial or political messages. He taught a required class called myshleniye, which means “thinking,” as in critical thinking.

That is the school everyone could use a bit of: the one that enlightens, that empowers its students to become too cool to be fooled.