There’s this game I play with my students on the first day of school, where I ask them near the end of the class to write down something they think they know about me. It’s a task I assign for several purposes, most of which are self-serving. I want to take my students’ temperature, see …
Holy crap, this is my 30th post. Since November, I’ve birthed 62,300 words out into the great abyss of the internet. That’s a couple fewer words than The Sun Also Rises; 16k more than ol’ Scotty wrote in The Great Gatsby. While it would be the humble thing to say I write for myself, that …
It’s finally summer, a prize every teacher squints at through the long, dark tunnel of the school year. As I spend my final days decluttering the smoldering trash heap that once resembled a classroom, I find it helpful to reflect on the year and give myself a chance to celebrate my accomplishments and identify areas …
At 7 p.m., shit is getting intense. There’s an increased urgency in the newsroom as the staff’s 8 o’clock deadline approaches. Editors piston between reporters shouting final copy and design corrections so they can put the pages to bed. “Okay, let’s look at this lead,” the editor-in-chief says to the news editor, the lenses of …
I suck at golf. Seriously. On my best days, I approached – but never broke – the score of 100. I once birdied a short par-4 at a crabgrass course in Maryland, but since I was alone, my only proof was a depressing photo of a dirty Titleist sitting at the bottom of a cup. …
Of all the myriad advice I received from friends and family before entering my first year of teaching, one stood out above the others: be prepared to cry. It wasn’t that I found the warning particularly ominous, nor did it surprise me that some teachers shed tears over the difficulty of their profession. What struck …
I Don't Belong Here. 