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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
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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
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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
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Things I Learned From Buying a House #2: Money Does Not Grow On Trees
If it did, I’d have a lot more than I used to, because I didn’t use to own any trees, and now I own six. Well, three trees, and two lilac bushes, and a cedar shrub. Nevertheless, money doesn’t grow on any of them. I have gone through periods in my adult life when I… Continue reading
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Holden Caulfield Has Left the Building: Reprise
I’m not teaching The Catcher in the Rye this term, but I’m pre-planning next year’s course on novels about adolescence, and wondering whether to include it in the list. The post below, first published in June 2009, grapples with the possibility that maybe it’s not the best choice for today’s youth, at least not those in… Continue reading
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Comment Problems Update
Dear readers: As a followup to problems some of you have been having with leaving comments, I refer you to the link below: Recent Update to Commenting The upshot: if you have a WordPress.com account, and you try to comment using your email address but without signing in to WordPress, the system won’t allow it.… Continue reading
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Comment Problems
Dear readers: Apparently some people are having trouble leaving comments on this blog. If you have tried unsuccessfully to post a comment, or succeeded only after more than one attempt, could you please click the “Contact Siobhan Curious” page above and send me a message letting me know? If you can include info on any… Continue reading
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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
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The Uses of Boredom: Reprise
An earlier version of this week’s reprint appeared in July of 2009. It tells the story of how and why I became a reader. And it asks: how do we learn to like challenging tasks if we live in a world where boredom is impossible? * I became a reader because I was bored. I… Continue reading
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What’s a Teacher to Do? Paul Tough’s How Children Succeed
When Paul Tough’s new book, How Children Succeed, arrived in my mailbox, I opened it with great anticipation. I love Tough’s writing; his pieces on This American Life and in The New York Times have always impressed me with their warm, clear prose. What’s more, last year, an excerpt from this book, published in the New York… 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 