(WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.) I wish I could remember her name. Tallish, thin, with pixie-cropped gray hair and sky-blue eyes framed by glasses, she taught the gifted program (as it was then called) at Northside Elementary when I was in sixth grade. Once a week, she escorted me and …
Approximately two weeks after my mother-in-law was granny-napped and installed at her oldest daughter’s family-owned care home, her daughters arranged to escort their mother to her bank and lawyer’s office. Her son (their brother and my husband), who at the time was her POA and property caretaker, had been seen on numerous occasions stealing furniture …
(part one) At some point after the 2020 election, my husband’s oldest sister had to find a new hairdresser and was terribly upset. COVID restrictions had been somewhat recently lifted, and she’d been looking forward to her cut and color ritual, the meandering and soothing chitchat that typically accompanies such salon appointments. However, instead of …
(Warning, the following contains spoilers for Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.) If I hadn’t retired, I’d be hanging kites in my classroom and prepping my Kite Runner unit, which I taught to my seniors every spring. I don’t miss being a teacher, but I miss teaching, and I miss spending spring with Khaled Hosseini’s glorious book. …
No teacher training ever covered teaching during a pandemic. Since Covid closed schools mid-March 2020, we’ve had to adapt on the fly. Overnight. Constantly. Repeatedly. My district’s students and staff endured nearly a dozen “first” days of school as our schedules continuously changed, gradually increasing remote instruction time, gradually welcoming more student cohorts into the …
(second in a series on teaching media literacy in high schools) So I’m glad you’re here today. Have a seat. Cameras on, if you don’t mind. Thanks. You may be wondering why I invited you here. Good question. I’ll get to that. But first I want to tell you a story: My daughter is an …
(First in a series on teaching media literacy…) I’ve been told I’m weird. I love teaching writing. (Grading writing, not so much. But that’s a topic for another post.) I particularly love teaching research writing. Forget all the formatting and college prep stuff–though that’s part of it, yes, and important–what I love about it is …
…And my feet are killing me. First thing I did when I got home was kick them off. Second thing, exchange my big girl clothes for sweatpants, a fat, fluffy sweatshirt and socks. Fuzzy socks. See, I’ve been teaching remotely since before Thanksgiving, meaning at home in my family room, thirteen steps and two hallways …
Sometime mid-spring 2020, administration allowed faculty and staff to return to our building to retrieve personal belongings and teacher resources abandoned so abruptly when Covid forced school closures March 13. The four large totes I carried home contained the books and binders I needed to carry my classes through June, as well as two items …
So I love showing up early to my own classroom Google Meets because, well, I like to be prepared for things–the early bird and all that–but also because some of my kids show up early and I chat with them about non-class topics like, Is that a Squirtle poster? (Yes). And, What’s your parakeet’s name? …
My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann 