The Best Lessons I Learned In School

1. “Necessary but not sufficient condition.” Geometry, 1992. Math is generally taught as if it is a tango, not a time to get down. Tango is too rigid for me. I never got to get down in math class the way I could when I was writing a paper. “Necessary but not sufficient” was one […]

The Humanity

I didn’t say this because I wasn’t sure I should. I’m a teacher, and I’m also a human being. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe. First I don’t sleep in my classroom… then this. People from the National Writing Project don’t ask me to be ashamed of spending time writing. They softened my […]

Role Models

Patti Smith wanted to be Rimbaud. In “Just Kids,” she describes her pilgrimage to the Rimbaud museum in France. And her attempts to dress like him. I wanted to be Madeleine L’Engle. And Man Ray. I am a little L’Engle: Episcopalian (partly her influence, but T.S. Eliot helped), frequenter of Broadway plays, introvert, demurely and […]

Microcosm

I went to see “Cabaret” last week, and I am still worried about Herr Schultz. He’s the Jewish character who thinks the Nazi thing will blow over. The people who put on the Holocaust educators’ seminar I attended last summer were some of the smartest, kindest people I’ve ever met. The studies themselves were a […]