“Just tell them, when they ask, that you’re looking for a good clash,” the debate coach said to me.   Whatever it took — I would do it.  I’d beg for the good kind. The right kind of clash. The Good Clash policy was declared about the same time that I learned how to write post-debate comment sandwiches.  Encouraging words, first.  (If you have nothing nice to say about the baby, my father recommended praising the blanket.)  So I’d rave about their well-matched socks and then I’d move on to appraising their arguments before signing off with a touch of...

Her thick, dazzling dark braid rests on her back, while she bends over her homework sheet, and after a brief thinking spell, sets her pencil back on task.  I watch her write a number in the right column, after she tests it out on me first. “14?” “Exactly right,” I spring back. I smile at her success and even share a piece of her victory. It’s so nice, I comment, while she plants her 4 in the ones column, that there’s a right answer … a perfect solution that works.  She pencils a small 1 on top of the next column and politely nods at my non-digital...