teaching
-
How Can I Get More Sleep?
A couple of years ago, Arianna Huffington gave a TED talk in which she exhorted women to get more sleep. I’ve been thinking about that talk a lot lately, because I’m tired. All the time. I recently bumped my alarm forward from 5 a.m. to 5:15, and that has made a tiny difference. But I still Continue reading
-
Education and Growing: Reprise
Foreword: It’s been a rough week. Things at work are going fine, but life outside of work – especially life as a new homeowner – has been, shall we say, challenging. Full of minor and major inconveniences. Full of questions about whether buying a house, buying THIS house, was such a good idea. My husband Continue reading
-
Things I Learned From Buying a House #3: Demystification
My husband and I are taking a home repair class, because since we moved into our brand new very old house, we’ve been paying people a lot of money to do things we could probably do ourselves. The class defies some current wisdom about what makes for “good teaching.” And it’s great. And I’m learning Continue reading
-
Willing to Read and Write: Reprise
Last week, this post – first published in September of last year – spiked in my blog stats. It seemed a whole pile of people were reading it, but I couldn’t figure out who or why, although the search term “effort” had a corresponding spike. Maybe now, at midterm, teachers and students are being hard Continue reading
-
How Literature Will Save the World: Reprise
Why should we keep reading? Why should my students learn to love reading? I began asking myself this question in 2010, and I keep asking it, of myself and others. Below, some of my initial thoughts on the matter. * Lately, I’ve been thinking about reading. Last summer I published a post in which I mourned Continue reading
-
Arrows into Blossoms: Reprise
My meditation practice has fallen to the wayside these days. It would be wise for me to return to it. In November 2009, I was tired of a lot of things, and some Buddhist reflections were helpful. In particular, I spent time thinking about the writings of Pema Chodron, a tattoo of the Buddha under Continue reading
-
Giving Thanks
Today is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, so it’s time to give thanks for all my good fortune. Here are five of my job-related blessings. 1. A salary. Last week, I wrote a post about money anxiety. However, I took pains to point out that money anxiety is relative. Every two weeks, a paycheck shows Continue reading
-
One Minute of Solitude: Reprise
We are six weeks into the semester, and I’m starting to pinpoint small classroom management issues and think about appropriate responses. Nothing major has arisen so far (fingers crossed), but whenever I am confronted with hints of passive-aggressiveness, defiance or rudeness, I start evaluating what I need to do: ignore? Confront? Defuse in some other Continue reading
-
Things I Learned From Buying a House #1: I Can Do It
You can do things you don’t think you can do. For most of my adult life, I said that I didn’t want to own a house. It was too much responsibility. I was willing to “pay someone else’s mortgage,” as people kept describing it, if it meant that someone else had to call the plumber Continue reading
-
When You Are Uncool: Reprise
As promised, today I begin a Thursday series of posts from the archives – posts that have long since disappeared from view but that I still like. New readers may be encountering them for the first time; if you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning, maybe you’ll see something new in the post this Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 