Nights like this after days like this make me think that I accomplish nothing in my work. One of the paper editors wants to teach a dozen kids at school the software to lay out the paper. That would be good if we needed a dozen layout artists. It would also be good if the…
Category: Refelections
Halloween Memories
Today in class we were writing memoir pieces about Halloween. I started with reading two chapters of Knucklehead, the memoir of Jon Scieszka author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and then we started writing our own memories of Halloween. Like the crazy lady who lived down the block from us…
Many Voices
October continues treating us with passion and gentleness as befits this time of year. There are few people that I know (outside of my classical musician neighbors) who might totally geek out with me about this piece of music. But I’m going to share it with you and the tiny little glimmer of hope that…
Banned (not Band) Books
I am happy to say that in my twelve years of teaching I have taught a number of books that have been challenged in other communities. I have even taught that explicit book Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. I once went to a seminar where the topic of the seminar became whether or not…
Light
I have been taking yoga classes for the past two years with Bob Whittinghill, an amazing Iyengar teacher in Chicago. I admit to only really feeling like I have been “studying” yoga for the last year or so. The first year I spent just trying to stay upright or supine or whatever the asana required. …
Four types of tears
(I started this on the last day of school for teachers) In the past 48 hours I have cried. A lot it seems. And I have discovered that there are really many kinds of tears. First – abject sadness I wept at my desk on Wednesday, exhausted from the stress of delivering the yearbook, having…
Misfit Toys
Earlier this year one of my colleagues told me that my advisory was the Island of Misfit Toys, and that I was the Lion. I suspect that I wear that badge with equal parts pride and sadness. Because it’s mostly true. One of my fears moving back to the middle school is that the Charlie…
A Piece I Am Piecing
I’ve been wrestling with finding time to write. Here is part of a larger reflection that I am working on. The Quilt When I began my career at this school there was a tradition of having new teachers speak at an all school gathering to introduce themselves to the school community. I am not sure…
Pinks
My oldest daughter is in a teen circus ensemble at The Actors Gymnasium. She’s in this bridge line. I know which one she is. But her pink spandex costume needs alteration; it’s just a bit wide. Today I am elected to alter the spandex. I have some sewing skills, yes, but my sewing machine is…
A poem for today (for me, just because)
54 by E. E. Cummings, from XAIPE maybe god is a child ‘s hand)very carefully bring -ing to you and to me(and quite with out crushing)the papery weightless diminutive world with a hole in it out of which demons with wings would be streaming if something had(maybe they couldn’t agree)not happened(and floating- ly int o…
Bone tired
Thursday and Friday of this past week we went on the Junior Class retreat. We take our class into the city, stay at a hostel, eat pot-luck, and work on social justice issues. Along the way we try to learn a little bit about each other and begin to appreciate the “others” that are both…
Meme Mash Up: 7 things and Music
Seven things You Might Not Know About My (Musical) Taste Clay Burell, was tagged for the Seven Things You Might Not Know About Me meme – but felt he had “been there/done that” with an Eight Things meme not too long back. So, he “fiddl[ed] with this one for the sake of self-pleasuring” (he really…
Living on the Lip of Insanity 