Barbara Swander Miller

Honoring the journey—then and now

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Chasing our Quaker ancestors from a log cabin in the woods

    It was beginning to seem like a game of tag… to find out as much as possible about my three times great aunt, Mary Jane Edwards who went South with her sister Lizzie– my three times great grandmother– to teach freedmen right after the Civil War.   And it was filled with stops and starts, dashes, and…

  • A celebration of the muumuu

    The closest I could come to  the muumuu of my aging hippie friend was a Chambray dress hidden on the clearance  rack at Walmart. Prefaded, loose and long. As I wriggled my arms inside its buttery fabric and let it fall over my head, it granted me instant permission to be free. Free from importance.…

  • Homemade jam, anyone?

    It shouldn’t be this hard for a teacher! I can read, right? How did my ancestors, or even my mother do it? Making jam shouldn’t be such a challenge! Spring arrived and suddenly I was surrounded by friends who were sharing their plans for planting, canning, and freeze-drying their produce just as I was beginning to…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Keeping Score

    “You can do anything” rang through my ears when I was growing up. It wasn’t true. I knew I’d never be  a ballerina.  But then… I never wanted to be. “You’re just like your mother and your grandmother,” my dad would exclaim in wonder. “Anything you try, you can do.” Maybe there was some truth …

  • The Dog Days of Spring?

    The Dog Days of Spring?

    Gasping to get a breath, shaking, howling. It’s quite a temper tantrum for this late at night. Or is it? Maybe she’s afraid from the thunderstorm and can’t tell me. Or maybe it’s trauma from her previous life. We heard she was abused. My husband says maybe she just wants attention. To have someone near…

Barbara Swander Miller

Honoring the journey in everyday life

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