Category: Education
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Time Is up
We were in the mud of testing. State Testing. The down and dirty that ELA teachers lived and dreaded in the first few weeks of school, after showing tips, sharing tricks, drafting, drawing, hoping, and praying our sophomores could engage and remember— and score high enough to graduate. Their desks were spread apart, facing forward.…
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Breaking out of a well-taped box
There may be hope! For the past six months, I’ve been stuck in a box, albeit one with musical notes decorating it. Today, I broke out of it! During the past year since I retired from teaching high school English, I’ve had some grand plans. In the early days, my head was filled with projects…
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Who killed you?
Does anyone else share my very particular pet peeve? For several years now, I’ve regularly experienced a trend that makes my skin crawl. No, it’s not fingernails on the chalkboard. And by the way, if you’re rarely in a classroom, you might not know that blackboards are passé. These days, various versions of marker boards…
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What if it weren’t true?
Remember Emily Dickinson from your high school English classes? The one who heard a Fly buzz- when she died? The one who could not stop for Death, so he kindly stopped for her? What if she hadn’t been so eccentric, as teachers have painted her in countless classrooms? What if, instead, she’d been a gifted…
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I’ll admit it; I’m a snob
It’s back to school time! Surely, you’ve noticed. Parents and caregivers navigate the seasonal aisles of their favorite department store, list in hand, squinting at packages as they try to find the proper-sized ruled paper and colored binders. Teachers elbow out other customers as they overload their shopping carts with composition books, multi-packs of scissors,…
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Is this pervasive chemical ruining our health?
Sometimes, I find a video that makes me fear for humanity. Often it’s connected to what the average American on the street doesn’t know. Alarming! Other times, it’s about politics. Irritating! This morning as I scrolled through a Facebook gardening page, I stumbled across something different. and it was scary! I watched it twice, once…
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Why I dread the happiest time in my students’ lives
After spending a year as a retired high school English teacher, I just returned to my former high school to participate in the commencement ceremony at the invitation of a graduating senior. It’s an honor to be asked and part of a lovely tradition that allows seniors to choose a staff member to hand them…
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Let’s ditch the tech
In today’s classrooms My heart was warmed today. And it had nothing to do with the near-record heat and humidity in the Midwest. No, it was a group of teachers who warmed it: eleven elementary, secondary, and post graduate teachers gathered for this year’s Invitational Summer Institute (ISI), conducted by the Indiana Writing Project Teacher…
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Together we grow
To my journaling educator friends We met, a pod of varied ages, values, upbringings, expectations and expertise. But all who spend our days hoping to ignite a spark in others. We gather according to the calendar to read and listen, to chuckle and giggle, to sigh and frown, but mostly to write– or draw or…
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The Coelacanth Still Scares Me
Suddenly, now that I have time to think, things aren’t the same anymore. Suddenly, things that were factual, aren’t. Or things that were fringe are mainstream. Case in point: Pangea. “No, of course the continents were never all hooked together,” my fifth grade teacher snorted. Even though we looked at a map and could see the…
