When I sit down to write fictional stories, the setting is always the same, and the setting is way out west in California. I don't know other places well enough, and even if I grow to, which I might now that I live in the Midwest, my bones quite literally grew to their capacity in…
Tag: students
When the Rug is Pulled: Humility, Identity, and Other Such Things
When I first began my teaching career in 2011, I prided myself on two things: my ability to connect with students and my classroom management. I wasn't always the best lesson planner or designer of rubrics, and I certainly wasn't always fired up about professional development and the state of education, but I could create…
Continue reading ➞ When the Rug is Pulled: Humility, Identity, and Other Such Things
Cool Shoes
Sometimes all it takes is a pair of shoes to shift everything. In fifth grade, my supremely cool step-mom took me to see Clueless and then proceeded to whirlwind me around Westside Pavilion on a shopping spree to mimic the far out fashion of the film. We're talking plaid skirts and knee high socks, patent leather…
Dear Parents
Although I have left my job as a teacher, I think about my students and their families regularly. I definitely miss the joy those kids brought to my life. (At the same time, I really really really love how...hmmm, what is this peculiar feeling? Oh! Relaxed! Rested. Yes, I really love how relaxed and rested…
If These Comments Could Talk
Each trimester when grades are due, teachers across the country (or at least across the westside of Los Angeles) wither under the writing of ten to twelve sentence paragraphs that must capture the academic achievement, behavior, effort, growth, and 'areas for future improvement' of their students. Some of us write only fifty, some a grueling hundred,…
A Full Life 