March to April

In March, I went to the computer to subscribe to the New Yorker, and found out one of my students had been shot. He was dead. I was having another one of my seizures of certainty that I could not be an educated person, a writer, a worthwhile human being, without subscribing to the New […]

Worth Blushing For

Although I technically teach English and writing, every year I also end up teaching sex ed. Every year students ask me such terrifying questions as, “I heard this guy jerked off on his back porch, and then a girl in her backyard across the street with her legs open got pregnant. Is that true?” or “Why […]

Scenes from the Chemistry Lab

D and I often experiment in the chemistry lab together. I have a student teacher right now, so I have the luxury of pulling out my most egregious troublemakers (like D) to give them my full attention. The chemistry lab is usually unoccupied, and right across the hall from my classroom, so that’s where exiles retreat to. […]

Playing God

I’m fond of the concept of “playing God” as presented in The Cider House Rules. It’s a novel with a good old-fashioned modernist directive: someone is going to play God, someone is going to wield terrifying power like a gun or a doctor’s kit, and maybe, since you’re a reasonable person, that person ought to be […]