Category: education
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Don’t Undervalue Online Education
Digital technology can enhance teaching and learning — if used properly Watching the news accounts pressing for students to return to the classroom riles me. I’m not opposed to students returning to the classroom safely; I’m riled because educational technology is getting a bad rap. In this dark pandemic, ed tech should seem bright with […]
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My Toastmasters experience…
Recently, I gave my first speech at Toastmasters — well, my first non-spontaneous, non-extemporaneous speech. It was called the “ice breaker” and on a topic I know well — myself. Trouble is, I know so much about this topic, it was hard to narrow it sufficiently to stay within the 4-6 minute time limit. In practice, I managed […]
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Dear new golden sick days…
Sick days, sick days Dear new golden sick days Sniffling and sneezing and hacking cough Kept me at home on a rare day off. Were I a teacher I’d go to work Share all my germs, make my illness worse. But the job I have now I can duty shirk Without hurting a classroom of kids. — (my revised, working girl version of […]
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Confessions of a former school teacher…
Driving to work today — the first day of school — I saw the school maintenance man and his son, a high school senior, wheeling their way to the campus. Ken and Matthew didn’t see me, but I was acutely aware of their car, having seen it day in and day out for years, usually traveling the same roads […]
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A teacher’s lament…
It’s the calm after the storm. Exams are taken. Yearbooks are signed. Ceremonies and celebrations applauded. The countdown completed. The final day cheered. Hallways emptied of raucous students. Teachers have finished grading those final exams and stacks of papers, the office staff have mailed final report cards, and the toils and struggles of the school […]
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The more we pretend to read…
I went on Facebook, saw I had a number of notifications, clicked to glance at the list, and then clicked “Mark as read.” Don’t ask me what was in the list. Don’t ask me any details. Certainly don’t give me any test over the material. But I did “read” them — about as intentionally as […]
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Rants, rages on students, self…
One of my favorite tasks at school is one almost completely unrelated to my real job. It is teaching students who find learning exciting. Every Thursday, I leave my juniors and seniors and head toward a classroom populated by kindergarten, first, and second grade students. I only spend a half hour to an hour there, […]
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When work feels like play…
Today I have the privilege to attend a conference that will help me lead my school through the accreditation process. I will be in a small room for meetings for about eight hours and then battle city and interstate traffic during rush hour to get home, likely late—so I can go to real work the […]
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Out of the mouths of teens…
One of my favorite contemporary artists is Mary Englebreit, and one of my favorite pieces of art by her illustrates the thought “To be happy, don’t do whatever you like; like whatever you do!” I’d like to think that one of my life mottos. But while I try to like whatever I do, at times—especially […]
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‘Suffering, too, is a good thing’…
My junior and senior English students had read Crime and Punishment and the book of Job. My bulletin board for the first quarter of school read “Suffering 4 doing evil is right; suffering 4 doing good is good” to encompass both the deserved suffering of the Russian protagonist and the undeserved suffering of the biblical […]
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The sudden stop at the end…
“It’s not the fall that kills you. It’s the sudden stop at the end.” No, I haven’t started skydiving or free-falling (or become suicidal). I still have my feet firmly planted on the ground with no desire for such risky business. And while I can imagine some risk takers might find joy in the fall […]
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The answer, my friend, IS blowing in the wind…
“I don’t mean to sound derogatory,” one of my English students told me, “but this writer kind of sounds like he is on drugs.” That week we had been reading passages about the wind written by two different writers, more than four hundred years apart. One, Joan Didion in her essay “Los Angeles Notebook,” discussed a Santa […]
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That is just so God!
Sometimes I see God’s love for me in people, even when they may have never intended it. Sunday morning, I was backstage in between songs at our first church service, while one of the vocalists sang a solo by Martina McBride titled “God’s Will.” Though I was behind the wall, I could hear the words […]
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Animated and it feels so good…
Animated and it feels so good Animated, I misunderstood That passing this course Meant making 3D and more, It truly was my tour de force I’ve animated, hey, hey. (To the tune of Peaches and Herb’s “Reunited”) I’m singing now, but I was crying earlier this week. Yes, it’s that course again, the Gaming and […]
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S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d!
“Once you stop growing, you start dying.” The Reverend Neville E. Gritt preached that from his pulpit on New Year’s Eve heralding the year I would graduate from high school. The year I figured I would become an adult–age 18–and, presumably, stop growing physically (because growing fat doesn’t count). I had heard that girls stop […]
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A pain in the game…
I would rather blog than game. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Period. Exclamation point. Done. But I have no choice. It is an assignment for my second to last class in my master’s in education program. Taking “Gaming and Simulations in Education” is required if I am to achieve my goal of graduating in […]
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Jesus is in the equation…
For the life of me, I can’t remember how I came to this conclusion with my Algebra IA students several years ago, but somehow, I ended the equation I was demonstrating with, “See, Jesus is in the equation.” At the time, we laughed–but we also saw the truth in the statement. This week, when my […]
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The freedoms we take for granted…
I went to my mailbox this afternoon and found an unusual object–a handwritten letter. It was from Peter, a former student who just recently left for the Marines and is suffering through boot camp. He wanted me to share his message with my students, but I thought his words valuable for us all: Peter’s letter: […]
All Things Work Together 