Teaching is Exhausting
Sitting here at the end of my 10th full year of teaching, I’m exhausted. Those of us who get into this career know what we’re in for; non-teachers will often make sympathetic comments about how hard it must be to be a teacher; even lots of our students are...
Neuroscience in the English Classroom
This school year, I decided to lean into something that I’d previously only been incorporating in a piecemeal manner in my classroom. Starting at the beginning of the school year, my 10th graders have gotten a healthy dose of neuroscience in my English classes. In part, it’s because I’m...
Expertise and Humility
Every year, when research paper season rolls around, I always have a few students that want to cite themselves, use their own ‘knowledge’, or consider themselves experts in their chosen topic. It takes a bit of convincing before they’re willing to acknowledge that maybe they’re not experts in their...
Your Brain is Lying to You
I want to know things, understand them, poke and question them until they make sense. I rarely accept something as-is and instead have to critically examine it from multiple angles and determine what it is and how it functions. My mind puts together a complex web of interconnected ideas...
A Rich Tapestry
“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of that tapestry are equal in value no matter...
Reading Native American Literature
I’ve been teaching my American Literature class for a number of years, tinkering with it, switching out texts, and trying to find the right balance of stories. Originally, the only Native American stories in the curriculum were some myth retellings from the first chapter of an old literature textbook....
Expectations
I wrote the following piece for my school’s literary magazine. It’s a student-initiated, student-run endeavor that I loosely oversee. We take submissions from HS students and staff at the school and the student editors put it all together. This year, our theme revolved around expectations. Expectations are a form...
The Simplicity of the Cat Life (and why Complexity is a Good Thing)
When I watch my cats napping in the sunshine, I occasionally wish for the peaceful simplicity of the feline life. Sleep, eat, chase a moth, then race around all bushy-tailed at 3am—what fun. But then I remember that their limited lives exclude many of the beautiful complexities and wonderful...
What Does Orange Juice Have To Do With Literature?
Seven or eight year old Jens woke up somewhat earlier than usual that morning. His parents and brother were still asleep so he trundled into the dining room and found his grandfather eating breakfast. Likely his second breakfast, considering it was after 7AM. Jens plunked himself at the oblong...
Why Sometimes a Character Must Die
Death is waiting for everyone. Each one of us will some day experience dying, whether after aging, through sickness, or suddenly. There is an inescapable inevitability to death and many choose to live their lives ignoring the end as much as they can, as though it will somehow prolong...