When I was seventeen and attending a Pearl Jam concert, I was concerned that I was uncool because I had never been to Europe or had a boyfriend. Also, my pants were usually wrong, one way or another. At last night’s Pearl Jam show, I was afraid I was uncool because I am old. Thirty-three. How times change.
Read More Before I Get OldIn the spring the whole world explodes, and when things get going and grow, the weeds come, too.
This is the crankiest time of year for teachers. The weeds are growing. This time of year, we worry about what the students have done, if it was the right stuff, and if we told them the truth.
Read More WeedsI had a migraine yesterday, and I came back to work shaky and tired, so when a kid this morning murmurred, “I hate her,” because I wouldn’t let her turn off the air conditioning and roast us all in our own juices, I murmurred to myself, “I hate you more.” Not so she could hear me or anything. Just under my breath, in the style of someone wildly immature or completely insane. I don’t hate her as a general rule. I just hated her in that particular moment.
Read More HowI know, you want to help people. Change lives! Reach out to the disenfranchised! Create educational equality in an unequal world! My goal was to do all that, and to make it through five years in teaching. More than half of our new teachers in America quit before five years. In schools with lots of […]
Read More Getting Your Sea Legs, or The Secrets of My (Wobbly, Five-Year) Success
Going On 