Family
Lessons From Losing
As a self-admitted, ridiculously competitive parent who wants her child to know how good it can feel to work hard and win, it is my duty to report that my son competed in a fencing competition last weekend….
Lessons on Valentine's Day
Today I shall chronicle some very special Valentine’s Day memories….
The Giver: Thirteen Years Later
It’s happening. My son is currently reading the first piece of literature that I ever taught. He is reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the story of a young boy named Jonas living in a highly controlled community some time in the future. The novel fits into a larger genre of cautionary tales called “dystopian literature.” If a utopia is a society in which everything is perfect, a dystopia is the opposite: everything has gone wrong. But my son doesn’t get this. Yet….
Post-Museum Trippy Lessons on Drugs
Last Sunday, I took my 11-year old to see the recent exhibit at our local museum called “Psychedelic Art: Hallucinogens and their Impact on the Art of the 1960s.”
I could hardly have been less prepared….
Guest Post by Megan Killinger: Lessons From The Spectrum
This personal narrative was written by Megan Killinger, a student in one of my Composition-101 classes during the Fall-Winter 2010 semester….
Guest Post by Leanna Best: Lessons From Javan
This piece was written by Leanna Best, a student in one of my Composition-101 classes held at Monroe Community College during the Fall-Winter 2010 semester….
Teacher's Pets: It's Not What You Think
They say some folks are dog people and some are cat people.
Sadly, I guess we are the people who can’t be either….
Cat Fight
Back in April, hubby and I went outside to play a nice light game of tennis, just to bat a few balls around – no need for keeping score, no problem with hitting a ball that has bounced three even four times.
In the middle of our friendly little game, a cat jumped from the top of the fence surrounding the court into a nearby tree. Squawks ensued and shplat! a whole nest of baby birds fell onto the court, right at hubby’s feet. One was critically injured. Its neck had been severed and its legs were spread out every which way. One hopped off into the nearby bushes to take cover (you might say, the smart one of the bunch), and the third hopped, stumblingly, across the court towards the net, trying to escape impending doom. Meanwhile, the mama bird screeched loudly. Shrieking. I imagined she was calling, “My babies! My babies!”…
Lessons From Nan, Who Passed On June 16, 2004
I will always remember Nan, wearing a snazzy pair of purple pants, sitting on the gold couch in my parents’ living room. Just sitting quietly, patiently, watching my brother and me as we made up games or put on little shows. Many years later, she would sit in the same place, doze off an on, awaking with an almost apologetic smile. Agatha Christie once said, “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable . . . but through it all, I know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” I believe Nan knew this, too….
Functional Illiteracy: The Repost
People who know me know I’m struggling this semester. I try to explain how my students seem weaker this year; how I can’t get them to use capital letters (or, in some cases, how I can’t get them to stop randomly capitalizing words that don’t need to be capitalized); how they won’t stop writing “im” instead of “I’m”; how I can’t get them to stop using the letter “u” when they mean the word “you.”…